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Syprar: Na Ito, Ne
niii
CYPRIAN
HIS LIFE.-HIS TIMES - HIS WORK
CYPRIAN
HIS LIFE: HIS TIMES - HIS WORK
“EDWARD WHITE BENSON, D.D., D.C.L.,
SOMETIME ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
‘Dondon
MACMILLAN AND CO, LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1897
[411 rights reserved.)
Dec
281.3
(228
ibis
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
iv PREFATORY NOTE,
Ais holidays were merely a change from one intense kind of
work to another: if he was in a place of artistic or antiquariax
interest, he worked at pictures and churches, as though it were
the business of his life: he stored kis mind with precise and
graphic impressions. In scenes of natural beauty, he studied
detail like an artist, At home, when at work, at Lambeth and
Addington, he had a “Cyprian” table, where his books and
papers lay often untouched for weeks together: late at night,
early in the morning, when ail his official work had been done
with the minute precision so characteristic of him, he stole an
hour from sleep for his beloved book: but I have the authority
of the Bishop of Winchester, who was with him constantly
at all times and places, for saying that not only did he
never let his literary work interfere with his official work, oi
constitute a reason for avoiding a piece of business, or deferring
an engagement—but that he regarded it in the strictest sense a.
a recreation only.
Thirty years ago, when he was Headmaster of Wellingtor
College, he found that his professional work was so absorbin,
that he felt himself in danger of losing sight of study, of erudi
tion, of antiquity, and resolved, on the suggestion of his dea
Friend Bishop Lightfoot, to undertake some definite work, whic,
might provide both a contrast to and an illustration of moderr
tendencies and recent problems.
Year after year, at Lincoln, at Truro, at Canterbury, thes
patient pages have grown: sometimes weeks would be consume
in the elucidation of some minute technical point: he even under
took, a few years ago, a journey to North Africa to study ἦν
topography: of late he has often sighed for “six weeks 0
unbroken leisure !—I could finish my book.” The first lundn
and fifty pages were put into print so long ago that when i
had reached the end, they required to be entirely revised an
EDITORIAL NOTE.
AMONG the last proofs which my father corrected was
found a memorandum to write an Appendix dealing with
the Rev. E. W. Watson's valuable Essay on the Style and
Language of S. Cyprian in the 'Studia Biblica et Eccle-
siastica, vol. IV. (Oxford, 1896). In all other respects the
book had been completed.
Mr Watson has since most kindly verified some compli-
cated references from two important codices in the Bodleian.
I must here also be allowed to record my sincerest
gratitude to my father's dear and honoured friend, M. Alexis
Larpent, who gave him invaluable assistance in verifying
references and suggesting corrections, compiled the index
and in conjunction with my brother, Mr E. F. Benson
corrected the final proofs.
A. C. B.
Feb. 12, 1897.
DUOBUS MARTINIS
ANIME PATERNE
SPEI MATURESCENTI
IN PACE
x PREFACE.
That we have some need of the Lesson of the Cyprianic
times 1 feel sure. Sure that it might have saved us some
of our losses.
Still 1 was not overcareful to point the morals in places
where it could escape no thoughtful reader wherein they
lie, or what they are. Such simpler morals are of infinite
value to a student who draws them out for himself. Not oi
much value to one who should read them over and think
that he had always thought them.
As I have dared to take the reader into confidence by
placing two names, sacred to me, on a leaf of this book, |
may perhaps be allowed to explain why work so long agi
commenced is so late committed to the reader's indulgence
At school under Prince Lee the very name of Cyprian ha
attraction for me. At Trinity Lightfoot and I read th
De Unitate together on Sunday evenings in my Freshman’
term, At Wellington, at Lincoln, at Truro, at Lambetl
even at this Addington—cara μδὲ tot cara—minutes only «
the day, often of the week, have been all that what 1 am nc
ashamed to call a life of labour has left me. Therefore
feel that if my love for the man has surpassed my abilit
to know him, I may humbly ask that some excuse may t
allowed me.
If the earlier part of this Life is somewhat thin, that
because I thought it not worth while to bring up its primit
to the same level and same fulness as those days of Cypri
when the real problems of Church and World were up
him and he wrestling with them,
The Texts of the Latin Versions witnessed to in |
writings are too special and too large a work to be includ
here,
The smaller type is for student-studies not essential
PREFACE. xi
the main course of story or comment, although they often
shew the source of the text. Some nevertheless I commend
to the general reader who will soon see whether or no they
have interest for him.
To Prof Lanciani I owe the map which illustrates the
chapter on Xystus. The two others are compiled. They of
course owe their accuracy to M. Charles Tissot and to the
grand Archzological Atlas of Tunisie which is being pub-
lished by the Minister of Public Instruction and Beaux-Arts.
I must express my gratitude to my friend M. Larpent
for his minute and learned assistance to me while seeing
the work through the Press, and to the University Press
itself and the Publishers for their patience.
EDW: CANTUAR:
ADDINGTON.
September, 1896.
xiv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 1I.
THE DECIAN PERSECUTION,
Section
L. The Roman Theory of Persecution . .
lI. The Outbreak of the Decian Persecution—Rome
TST. The Persecution at Carthage.—i. The *Stantes
*. The'lapi*
On the Form and Contents of the Libellé
IV. The Retirement of Cyprian 2. 0.
V. Interference of the Church of Rome
VI. The Lapsed and the Martyrs.
VII, The Cyprianic Scheme for Restorative Disciplioe «
Om the " Proof” of Roman. LU dein fion
there events.
VILL. The adopted polly νας Canada cc Ee
On the Thirteen fpi d etia Caption n sent iln, to the
Romans
Ix. Diocesan Diaelctodes “Ἄς κυ
X. Declaration of Parties—Novatus and Felicissimus
Budinariui and Sarcinatris «—
ΧΙ, Growth of the Opposition at Rome—The dignis sad Horas
CHAPTER Itl.
SEQUEL OF THE PERSECUTION.
1. Cyprian's * Fixsr Counci, or CA&rHAGE':
Question 1. The Title of Cornelius
Question 4. Decision on Felicisshnus
Quesion;, Novatianism — .
Four different Pictures from the year ago
Of Cyprian before his oum Prabyterr ον
Of Cyprian defore the Roman Preshyters
Of Felicisimus as a more faithful representative of the
Church .
Of the Eeanesence of Novatus wer Ritiht's Analysis
Question 4. The Decision on the Lapsed
1|. Advance of Novatianism—Return of the Confessors. oe
TH. Continued Action against Novatianism—Roman Council of A.D. 251,
Antiochene of A.D. aa —
Dificultite in Mawifring Hippolytus, through whom
Dionysins wrote to the Romans, with Mippolyts of Portus
Why is Dionysius’ Epistle to the Romans called διακονικὴ ἢ
=
v.
CONTENTS,
Intelligent Devotion —* ΟΝ THE LORD'S PRAYER’ =.
Tole sewing the Vra! Det o Τσιμάμων in pra
Treatise De Dominica Oratione
(8 ἂρ Chri end Grains of the De Dominic
Oratione 2
Compas inom elucidating the Dates Ee ae ὦ
Ritusl—1. The Mixed Cup» . . 5
3 TheAgeofBsptsm . . . «Ὁ. Ὁ
‘Objection 19 Council 111. on account of ity Antipelagianism ον
CHAPTER VII.
Tur Roman Citar.
1. The End of Comnerius =. -
The SittingofLuctus - . . -
a ‘The Church not identified E or Ld "
ogo Tis Foe Appt ES at
. The Gaulish Appeals 48s
INTERCALARY.
Presbyters as Members of Administration — -
CHAPTER VIII.
ΤῊΣ Barisal Question -
|. » The Tradition of Africa .
3. The Tradition of Asia Minor East v nac dece:
1. Position of the Leadere—Cyprian and Stephen — 5
Dates (Council of Zeoninne and other) 2
2 Actsand Documents .
Firmi Covsen, Fraer on Barta
Sixrk Councit, Secoxp ox Tarrrsx «
Did Stephen excommunicate the Bishops zm p
Dionysius the Great. .
That there ts no rsen te nuppone hero 6 are missing from
e Correspondence swith Stephen.
That the piste to Pompey (Ep. 74) and Staphon's Epistle
queted thercin are earlier (ham the Third Council «
That Ep. 71 το Stephen is rightly put down τ the Second
Council, mot the TMed ..
Thal Quistur of Burue whe spoke im the Scornth Council
ds Quintus the Mauretanian, Recipient of Ep. 31 «— Ὁ
CHAPTER XI.
TurBuTHDAY eee
Where was Cyprian Martyr buried 6 sw ew
Where twas Cyprian tried and executes? — . Bye
The Dress of Cyprian — Η ^
The Soldiers and Officers named in the Trial» . eif
Of the Massa Candia ep e Dos BÉ
dta Preconsularia 4 1 Ἢ
CHAPTER XII.
AFTERMATH,
APPENDICES,
A. "PuiNCHPALIS EccLEstA, Note om the vni of tiep
DOOR M T o
"s Additionat mote om Libelli and two extant specimens of them top.
SIRO) . . : Mert
C. The [ntrigue about Manutius! Text. — Visconti’s Letter (p. 212)
D. The Intrigue about the Benedictine Text. Additional note on du
πον D WEST m oom on
ES ke of the doge iw De Unitate c. IW. mv mem
T. Qn points in the Chronology of Valerian's Reign (pp. 486544) +
Ὁ. On the nameless Epistle Ad Novatisnum and the attribution of it to
Xeis(pa) 5 0. or o :
M mn itta coa
(Genuineness, Seniority). ὃ
1, K. The Cities front which the Bishops came ἐν the Seventh Council
on the First of September, A.D. 296 -
L. On S. Cyprian's Day ὧν Kalendars. And how it came to be in
England on the a6th instead of the ryth of September *
CONTENTS. xix
MAPS.
Page
The Cemeteries on the Appian Way nea Rome . . . . s 48ὶ
Carthage (Environsof) . . . 20. 509
Proconsular Africa and Numidia to illustrate the writings of Cyprian. 578
WOODCUTS.
Lcwusof Fabian» 40000002040... s 4 66
Loculusof Comelius 5 s/s we eat
Locus of ΜΝ"
Coins of Cornelia Salonina — . 300
δῆριν Century fgure of Corian and Cornelia from the Coney of
Callistus 302
Localus of Lucius. - + 306
Well of the Legend of Stephen's s haptizng à in Cemetery of Domitia —- 332
Lit of Books quoted. . . . ee 0.0.0. s. s Ónt
Maden, en Go uborE Fo ipe qe (cab Set, 1e a a
ERRATA.
pP. 48. Instead of Caecilius, read Caxilianus.
p.130. n. 4, read Privatus of Lambase had Five adherents,...Five Bishops
attended Cornelius at the reconciliation of Maximus.
p.160. ead, the Bishop Evaristus, who had been probably one of Novatian's
consecrators.
CHRONOLOGY
OF THE
TIMES AND WRITINGS OF CYPRIAN.
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smügmby
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gum sie «any κε Ὁ ἡ νυν » Arr ditur
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snjeuoq PY pauaauoo uxud£ umqur d suas
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xxiii
TIMES AND WRITINGS OF CYPRIAN.
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18
xxvi INTRODUCTION.
plateau after plateau till it plunged its roots in Sahara, and flung its
torrents into leagues of salt lakes, Between the twin giant ridges, some-
times linked together by cross fells and yokes of lower height, were high
plains and hollows full of mountain basins and small streams, so that
there were endless rich sheets of land and fertile slopes, and sometimes a
succession of fat plains, as on the Medjerda, as well as oases of bewilder-
ing fertility out in the deserts. Horses and cattle, cereals, the heaviest
wheat and largest yield then known, minerals, unique marbles, palm
groves southward and olive woods northward, and mountains of cedars
stocked and stored the land. The yield of oil was prodigious, and a third
of all the corn consumed in Rome and Italy was grown here.
These three lines, the northern slopes, the southern terraces, and the
vast central lap, were thick from immemorial time with native villages,
most of which grew into towns of which scarcely one was insignificant in
its possession of some source of well-being.
It was on the brow of the seaward head, between highlands and low-
lands, where the ends of the two chains brought the westering shore to ¢
sudden stop and turned it north,—it was in that gate, commanding the
mouth of the Medjerda valley, that Carthage had long since sat herself down
Ttaliam coutra, and looked straight north to Rome. So dangerously new
it was, that Cato shewed the senators a fresh fig pulled two days befor
in Carthage, as a token that both could not exist.
* * +
"The end of her power had been the beginning for her of unequalle:
wealth, When her warships had been towed out to sea and fired sh
became a neutral, free of the seas, while war kept out of commerce all th
maritime peoples of the East for half a century.
But that prosperous interval stified the spirit of a state for whic
Hannibal bad not been ambitious enough, when he sketched an honou
able peace and Africa for a safe dominion. The pursuit of gain thinne
their troops and filled them up with mercenaries. The fifty years ove
they had nothing but the wish for peace and a readiness to give and ket
any required guarantees, to oppose to the stolid animosity of Cato ar
the craft of Masinissa. lr would have been a sore exchange for mankir
if semi-orientals scrambling into democracy through constitutional dec:
had prevailed. But the Roman policy, inspired by both fear and gree
its sceret instigation of the barbarian, its simulation of impartiality, h
been called by the calmest of historians ‘diabolic’ It flared out in t
atrocities of the siege and the capture. Through seventeen days the ci
which lately contained 700,000 people, burnt as ‘one funeral pyre^ Th
the plough was foolishly dragged about her vitrified walls.
* * *
A quarter of a century, and her history began again through Cai
Gracchus, but in a dreary fashion, She loomed too large still to be 1
to Phesnician boatmen and Libyan mapalia. The capital was suddet
Vandals, which wrought the last wreck.
* * *
Of material Carthage we have less solid knowledge than of any great
city. Carthage has been learnedly rebuilt in the air, its temples and
streets mapped and named by departments, but all are as visionary
mirage. Archiology has spoiled Carthage for museums as Arabs did
for harems, and Italian Republics for cathedrals. Until science and
system explore what lies interred under cloisters we can know little o
Ser edle eus iaacunent irs acf inre wonderful than itself.
its majesty. When Cyprian was there in the height of his repute, Can
thage is reported by Herodian to have been in population and wealtl
the equal of Alexandria and second only to Rome. Its beauty matched
its rank,
‘The first few steps in it to-day are enough to shew us that these
quarters were laid out by no Arab hand, Two streets of great le
the city northward and westward as imperial roads. For the outer
and environs they form hase lines each way for many other streets
‘out at right angles, and frequently interlaced again with convenies
diagonals. In the inner city, with its winding edge and cli
and steps, the streets still made a singular symmetry of squares
triangles, so that space was rapidly traversed and every awkward ple
made serviceable. Most of this literal geometry was Roman, but in th
older citadel-region and religious quarters there are traces perhaps ¢
those streets with which, earliest of all world-cities (it was believed
Carthage was laid out in regular plan. In another feature this I
City resembled modern sea-ports and was unlike ancient ones. b
harbour was excavated in regular basins, outer and inner. The onte
oblong, for vessels of commerce, the inner, called Cothon, fitted for 22
full-sized triremes. This ran round, or nearly round, a circular islan
from which the Punic admiral's quarters had commanded the lake
"Tunis and the sea. All was constructed at the one corner which gave
straight shore, south and north, for quays and a short end southwa
and sheltered for the harbour mouth, Everywhere there was a geni
for adaptation visible. At the intersection of the two great streets 8)
the extraordinary reservoirs, Roman too, but on Punic lines. The sul
structure of the citadel—a unique contrivance (except so far as
resembles the sub-structure of the Temple)—is a nest of cham!
where water was purified and stood in vast vólume. Of the triple
of the inner city, itself containing stabling ‘gnd barracks, witho
believing all that is in Appian, we may believe wonders.
At the heart of the isosceles triangle which, as we can perceive, tl
city shaped out, rose three hundred feet high, the famous Bozrah—elimbe
xxx INTRODUCTION.
authority acknowledged. Cyprian tells them thie Theatre is the apo
theosis of sin, this Forum the living spirit of Falseness, It is a stra
note of our city that all these have been not ruined but annihilated.
Faintly then we may picture to ourselves a material something no
wholly unlike what Carthage was. Scarcely any city yields so
of sudden steeps and many-tinted marble heights, or opening full an t
glistening quays and the breathless harbour: gracefal hills about
crowned with shrines and villas, great levels spreading im chase o
garden; low ‘dificult hills’ with ‘artificial passages; which yoked th
neck of its foreland; the vast lake where navies of commerce and o
sea; mountain crests in snow watching from the distances; through al
and over all the keen light and intense blue of Africa.
* * *
More to us than the splendours of the place is the population, it
habits and temper.
One of its unlikenesses to other capitals was the way in which it ws
made and kept a city of Peace, luxurious but n i
"When Carthage called the Gordians τὸ the Empire, ten years befor
Cyprian became a Christian, the military ceremonial of Rome
punctiliously represented there, but t
‘would make Emperors, with being |
Latinized since the last eolonizations.
xxxii INTRODUCTION,
round the bright towns, rich in every natural advantage of water aa
‘wood and quarry, while enormous tracts of land were being afforested.-
All this implied an immense class of lawyers and agents, of architec
amd engineers, builders of aqueducts and road makers, with Colleges i
who had never found it convenient to drop the augural syste!
which gave « Divine sanction to their mensuration. Their verdicts mu
be no more disputed than those of the magistrates, who similarly suj
ported their excellent character for justice by conjuring tricks, by retainit
priestly functions, by a grave acting of religious sentiments which few
them entertained. If there was one thing they disliked, it was having
punish opinions which at first seemed to them only eccentric, Yet Uu
Christians turned even this into a grave necessity. |
. * *
How could there be many races without many gods? Yet the
Christians would have but one God, and Him a new one. How cov
so many races have unity or coherence without the cw/fwr of the o
Emperor?
Before his bust in the standard of the legion, before his image in t
shrine of the domestic cloister, incense went up continually, He might
vile, but he was the Unity of Man. His mwmen was an earthly Pro
dence—practically more useful than a heavenly one—so useful that af
a temporary interruption by Christian Emperors the same cultus reviy
and still flourishes on the same earthly centre.
Among Celts and Africans schools of Latin were a necessity, Th
naturally became schools of Rhetoric. Spain, Gaul and Africa were e3
famous, and Augustine admits no rival to Carthage except Rome, |
Professors of Oratory and of all the knowledge which oratory deman
Fronto, with his ‘gravity, glorified as "ἐλ Orator' and canonized
Aurelius’ lavish friendship, was of Cirta, But as of old it was remiarh
that Africa had produced ‘no astronomer,’ so to the last she reared
philosopher.
Augustine, who owed so much to its schools, cannot be said τὸ sp«
of Carthage with affection. Its ‘riot of flagitious loves’ which swept aw
even ‘the more sedate,’ its stage dancing and scenic shame, and scarc
less the falsity of its rhetorical training and the objects to be effected
that training, made Carthage a blot on his memory. He speaks with
further horror of street scenes in which he never took part, the abomina
eversiones, which seem to have perpetuated the tradition of those Pu
riots in which, as at Alexandria, Polybius says the youths took as my
part as the men.
But in general her citizens were as ‘enamoured ' of Carthage as Peric
wished his countrymen to be of Athens. The (celing is not ill represen
‘by Apuleius, himself ‘a half Goetulian, half Numidian’ from Maday
He speaks of her schools, her commerce and her religion as the ne
xxxiv INTRODUCTION.
the fees and perquisites of sacrifices and the price of victims, Of tv
Punie words in Augustine, one is ‘Mammon,’ which he renders *Laen
and he quotes one proverb, ‘The Plague asks a coin: give two to be 1
of him? Commerce was their aristocratic life, sencraft and
their ancestral pride, ‘Thy benches of ivory ; fine linen with broiden
work of Egypt thy sail;,..wise men thy calkers'; so Heekiel touches
the Tyrian galley, such a ship as sailed with its annual freight of * Fin
fruits’ from the daughter Carthage. A gainful people, bigh and lo
intriguing and bribing for office, says Polybius, with a bribery whi)
at Rome in his time would have been penal and capital; ambitio
with a passion which Hannibal himself failed to gratify.
‘The character of the race was permanent like its physiognomy ἢ
‘both they were Clenant, as they called themselves to the last, genui
Canaanites.
When the last Colonia settled ‘within the vestiges of great Carthag
there were some thousands of Chenani lingering there, safer than amo
Libyan nomads They were not ejected. There was nothing to hinc
the redevelopment of their antient tastes, but everything to promote the
The Romans who had been so scared when the jackals pulled up t
boundary rods were only too glad to adore and to endow the gods
possession,
Tt is not hard, then, to understand how under the Empire the rich a
able Chenani prospered, and how their crafisen, labourers and sail
found more employment than ever on the quays, harbour and lake, wht
rode fleets of all nations. The memory of their past was written in colos
characters all round them, and would have tended to keep a less sup;
people separate in the pride both of achievement and of suffering, a
probably in a distinet quarter of the city. But of this we hear nothij
And although some great Punic families probably withdrew gradually
their remoter estates, as the Mahomedan gentry now slip away ἔτι
Algiers even against the wish of the French, yet at any rate in Carth:
strong interests promoted fusion.
It is more hard to say what hold Christianity took on them, Ἵ
copious Augustine, who flashes into every corner, finds it needful to «
attention to only two Punic words, even incidentally, The second y
Messiah, We must not assume from this that the language had rece
in the two previous centuries, for Cyprian and Tertullian mention no
‘The two Sacraments were known among them by beautiful nam
meaning Salus and Vite, which Augustine supposes must have come
them through some original Apostolic channel of their own. Yet in’
Cyprianic documents, flowing over with sacramental language, there is
one doubtful allusion, ‘Laver of Health,’ and that is in the retranslat
from Firmilian.
For official use Punic had been soon disallowed, and in Carthage
Phoenicians soon became bilingual, but the Romans never. In them
xxxvi INTRODUCTION,
ἃ stern, if self-satisfied, code. But when the best was done, the ine
vidual only was moved or raised, and the individual grew daily of le
and less account. |
The one thing desirable, the one thing unattainable by any know
method, was a re-casting of Society, such that selfishness should ]
discounted as an evil, the source of evil, and yet the individual be may
of full account. A Society faithful to the Individual, the Individy
devoted to the Society.
Meantime there had been growing wp for more than a century a)
ἃ half in every grade of society a kind of Union, or rather a kind
*People,' for this was what they meant to be, although not im any sen
a nation. They were uniformly loyal to the Government, save only
to the one article of bearing arms in its service. Hut averse,even à
verse, to almost every other influence, rule, tone, opinion, habit and sact
observance of every locality in which they were found.
It was understood that they were bound together in a federal netwo
and their leading officials generally well known, and that by the ss}
official titles in all countries, They sought the individual whom tb
thought likely to join them. They cared for the stranger. If he beca;
one of them, they made him, wherever he travelled or settled, one
a circle of pledged friends with vowed teachers. God and Life ἃ
Death were not the same things to them as to any others. There wi
daily, and sometimes more frequent gatherings of their local groups.
public life they were irreproachable except for their strange conventio
betraying their new associations by nothing sometimes but a derang
character. Yet the least moral of their neighbours had more than dow
of their secret licentiousness, Few knew the affiliations of their tenets
theories. Historically and * scholastically' they were bound up with |
Jews, but Judaic hostility to them was unsleeping. Admired profess
of philosophy considered that, with more or less clearness, their ethi
notions were unaccountably sound, but so disfigured by being adapted
fit such hopeless people, and their evidently philosophie Founder so ¢
guised behind a wild story and a sacrilegious theory, that if the ethics |
‘no practical effect on them this could not be wondered at.
‘Their unpopularity must rest on some deep contradiction to hun
principle, or it could not be so instructive and universal. Social har;
popular outbreak, magisterial severity, imperial thunder were perpetui
‘breaking on them, and were less than unavailing; in fact stimula
interest in them and adherence to them, Until lately they had b
ἃ non-descript between ethnics and Jews, a Trréium Genus whom *
recognized tolerance’ could scarcely be expected to tolerate. Yet pee
began slowly to be aware that the singular persons whom they kr
belonged to an invisible ‘majority.’ ‘We are men of yesterday,’ s
"Tertullian, yet they were “filling cities, islands, castles, boroughs, coul
rooms,—even camps,—the tribes, the decuries—palace, senate, forur
——-
2 CYPRIAN.
and when he speaks affectionately of Carthage as the h
place on earth to him,—' where God had willed that he
believe and grow up (in the faith),’ he would scarce
omitted to claim a native interest in the beloved hoi
he possessed ἴτ᾽.
All that to us is represented by the influence of th
lay in an ancient capital within the power of eloquenc
from any shade of unreality resting on them the teac
oratory were courted leaders in society. The publicity
the majesty of national audiences, the familiarity of tt
vated classes with the teaching of the schools, requi
orator to be not only perfect in the graces of life, bu
versed in ethical science; to be armed with solid arg
as well as to be facile of invention; not less con
than attractive; in short to be a wit and a student,
tician and an eclectic philosopher.
At the age of nearly thirty Cicero was still placing
under the tuition of the Rhodian Molon*, Augustine’
e 37$, 181) is so named, as is also also Corg. nacre. adf. vol. x
Deacon who carried the remarkable — Q. TASQIVÀ FORTVNATVS,
Sk res between Jerome and From the connection of Cy
Augustine (Aug, Éfp. 71 et sqq); a Carthage it might have seme
Presbyter, to whom Jerome writes as — to derive Cyprianus thence |
Presbyterorum atudiosissime,’ Zp. io had been an ascertained pro
(139) (13) on Pralm 89 (99); and a — but searcely otherwise, Pape
Donatist Bishop (Aug. r. fate. Patil. iti, it with *Coppen' 1f deri
€. da (40))s in C. June. Grew. 8954 Cypris it would, as other der
from Bethlehem, 9203, 9412 Kyrpy(a)- divine names, Apollonius 11
wou; in C. Jnserr. Latt.viti.i 455, 2291 — &t. be more common. Nay
{a Bishop of agai), vini- ii. το 530: and after this goddess come gene
in Procopiusasthe name ofa Duxfede- — Aphrodite.
ratorum ‘in the Vandal and Gothicwam. The birthplace is not n
‘Thus Pape properly calls it alate name. cated by the passages qui
‘The origin of both namesisunknown. — Prudentius Ziriztefs xil. 3
The Morarabic Vesper Hymn for his — prius patrim martyr,’ and Μ᾽
day begins ‘Urbis mogister Tasco,’ Καρχηδὼν. ἐξ tx ὡρμᾶτο, evi
Lit. Mos, ed, Migne 1. €, 1201 (ed. — ing their authority to be
Card. Ximenes, "Tusce! but this Jerome's "Cyprianus Afer! |
cannot be identified with the African taken, as by Fechtrup, to gni
town Thacia (Zi. Zu&.), Θασία (Ptw’,), — sarily a native of Africas
‘or regarded as more than a guess. See — * For the third time Cic. 2
——
4 CYPRIAN.
No accessions, indeed, to the Christian ranks were
important than the conversions of the great lawyers. V
jn letters and in modern thought, practised in the sifti
evidence, cold to the voice of enthusiasm, moving in
circle of refined habit of which Minucius gives so delit
picture in his barrister’s holiday at Ostia, accustomed 1
over to see Christians at the worst worldly advantage
became witnesses and disciples at once, Nor are any p
mena more significant of the hold which was being g
upon the Roman world than first the conversion, and
the superiority to contemporary ethnic writers, in genius
and in cultivation, of a Tertullian, a Felix, a Cyprian.
The position he had attained might alone imply tl
the time when he first attracts our notice Cyprian had p
middle life’. His wealth was affluent, his landed pro
large, his gardens in Carthage spacious and beautiful’,
home of which he speaks to Donatus as no longer fair 1
purged eye is sketched apparently from his own:sit is 2
of more than Pompeian richness, with frescoed walls, ¢
ceilings, and marble-lined saloons*.
χυμὸν ἐν ἑκάστῳ τῆς περὶ πάντα TON
gafas, It is evident that Gregory had.
read some at least of bis treatises (and
see also c. 7). There is no ground for
supposing his other Cyprian to have
written anything.
+ Pearson rightly sets aside Baronius"
inference from the 4d Donatum c. 3
"senio; as to bis age, and observes
that Pontius gives no hint of it. This
just possible that in his
superfine style he may parallel ovteribur
‘by seéustatís and senibus by wfaiem, thus.
implying old age. Antiquity is not part
οἵ the antithesis, and be is contrasting
Cyprian with those who had heard the
‘truth all their lives. Gregory Nazianzen,
calling him (Or. xxiv. 6) rb ria»
ufos, confuses him with the C
Cyprian who was somewhat 9
according to the story.
? Pont. Vit. s, ad Donat, 4, |
4 Ad Don. 15. Compare Vit
5 (8) 'Forensíbus autem et
(atria) elegantiors et spatiosiom |
ventus excipiundos.’ I do not in.
to the text Gregory's ὁ πλούτῳ |
wie καὶ δυναστείᾳ περίβλεπτοι a
γνώριμοι... σνγελήτον βουλὴν μα
καὶ προεδρία liccause there is nok
whether he has the right Cyprian.
him. Or. xxiv. 6. The end of 4
c. 3 hus no relation to his own py
*Fascibus i/le oblectatns... ie 4
clientium. euneis! are picturesqu
trations simply.
E
6 CYPRIAN CALLED FROM THE BAR.
the church, but for his instinctive delight in concer
with others and in gathering influential men ab
finely developed tact in approaching the right pei
suitable moment, and a real laboriousness in kee
of weight informed of all they could desire to kn
habits may belong to men of small conceptions ;
the accompaniments of genius, such a genius
world,
"The peculiar expressions of two authorities, on
from local opportunities, the other from the chara
investigations, may have seen good reasons for t
imply that, in somewhat more than the comme
of an advocate, he had concerned himself with n
polytheism. Whether in processes touching tem)
ments, or in procedures against Christians, in panej
some more speculative way, cannot now be deter
Jerome distinctly speaks of his having been a ‘vit
idolatry,’ and Augustine dwells on ‘the garnitu
‘noble eloquence whereby the crumbling doctrines
‘were once undeservedly decorated,’ ‘that eloquen
‘as from some precious goblet, he once drank
‘deadly errors*’
The purport of the Christian rites had never
escaped his earlier observation as a moralist. Li
noble heathen he had known what it was to rel
sensualhabit. The power of Baptismal Grace had
tioned in his hearing and not excited his derision
suppression of passion and surrender of indulgene
3 Comm, im Fou. y*ailsertor idolola- — n. 9286) he is styled (m.
trie, cf. Optat. i. c. 9'adsertoribus ec — (saepe) PRORATYS ET.
clesive Catholic; So Aug. Cow. vll» — LICAR ADSEKTOX DIGN
says that Victorinus the rhetoriclan had As to Cyprian we scare
ἀρ to an advanced age defended with — Gregory Nasiansen for οὺ
μῶν δαιμόνων ἦν θεραπευτ'
πιωρότατος may reprown!
tion of A.D. 49$ on Donatus Bishop of dition, Or. xxiv. S.
Tanarumus (C. /mxrr. Latt. Vi. ti, * Serm, 312, c 2 (2):
8 CYPRIAN THE CATECHUMEN,
man ofthe world. He gives us the very words' of one vi
relic of Cyprian's talk, It is about Job, and though
wording differs throughout, the thoughts are almost ident
with his later reflections on the character which appear in
book Of Patience.
How deep-dyed a stain rested on society is seen in.
singularity which was attached to the fact that from
moment of his cntrance into the ranks of the Catechum.
and ‘before the insight of the second birth the new com
devoted himself to perfect chastity* What he felt to be
moral obligation of his position is no doubt expressed in
of the headings of his ‘ Testimonies, soon afterwards comp
—"that a Catechumen ought to sin no more,’ This is how:
singularly deduced from a false reading of St Paul ‘Let w
evil while good ἐς coming—whose damnation is just*"
Thus carly‘ also he reverted to the primitive example
liberality, and in seeking to palliate the incurable pauper
of his time parted with his property, whole farms appare
at once", and distributed all the proceeds.
1 Observe the direct tenses, and the
Inixoduction of dicha. Pont. Fit. 3.
Compare De B. Fat. 18. Observe also
how ἃ forger of either of these pieces
would have copied mun from the
genuine one—while two independent
forgers could never have so coincided in
thoaght and tone. The one word of
coincidence is the calling of Gop's
commendation a * blessing" (demaitetio
—tenediceret)
? This alone shews how the xagev-
νίαν and ἀγρυπνίαι attributed to him by
Greg. Naw are in a false key, and do not
belong to thir Cyprian. ὧν. xxiv. 13,
5. (Faeiamus mala dune veniunt bona?
quorum damnatio justa est,’ Rom. ili, 8
ap, Tea. lii. 98.
5 ^ Rudis fidei et eui nondum forsitan
crederetur, Pont. Pi a, £e, whilst bia
conversion was probably distrusted, like
St Paul's, Acts ix, 26.
δ The teat here is interesting.
traerís rebus suis ad. indigentiam τὶ
rum pacem sustinendam, tota ]
pretia dispensans, &c.' i» Hartel's
ing in Pont. Vie c. 3. Rut “pa
in this material cense (and not me}
“freedom from persecution") is in
able. The reading of Bol. wx. 1
Bodl Laud. Misc. fol. 192) *ind
tiam multorum paaperum' is not
good sense, but also accounts for
Cem" through an intermediate 8
viation pi.
For pretia most editions have ¢
but pro provlia frada ix the rendi
Cod. T, the favourite of Hartel.
corrupt presa preva indicates
than the word prefia only, and
‘tote predia pretig dispensans’ j
harsh. Dr Hort once suggested |
"
10 CYPRIAN THE CATECHUMEN.
"THAT IDOLS ARE NOT GODSV' It is the work of a
not of a teacher®,
A little later he challenges the world’s Life: this
review of the world's Creeds,
τ, The popular Divinities can, he argues, be identif
historical benefactors. Their variety, the survival |
tradition about them, the inferiority of one national ¢
another, the occasional suppression of one group by |
sufficiently demonstrate this, The indigenous Roma
was one of the least prominent or least respectable
could credit Picus or Tiberinus, Pavor or Cloacina »
rise of Rome? To native deities the greatness of the
owed nothing. After lodging this shaft, he accepts tl
—supported by a consensus, as he says, of the master 1
antiquity,—of the operation of wandering and impuri
Their presence is sufficient to account for the ma)
nomena of vaticination and possession upon which th
stitious fabric of worship has been raised to obstr
rational service of God. Their office is to ' confound ti
false,—deceiving and being deceived.’ He then con
challenges their votaries to be present at a Christia!
cism. He speaks of extraordinary scenes—the con
the lamentations, the departure of these spirits—as
events,
4 For the title *quod Ldola dii non — ing (hiforiaruwr onmium a
sint kept in all the manuscripts, and — not know how simple a €
confirmed by Jerome Ap, 70 (84). 5 ad — it was. For instance, it bete.
Magnum, and by Cyp. ΒΡ. ad Kortunat. ther acquaintance than com
opening with the same words, nearly Δ] — Minucius (c. 91) with Eubi
editions have substituted ‘De Idolorum ^ Kationalist, whose Ἱερὰ '
Vanitate,’ so destroying the modest translated by Ennivs, was
character of a simple thesis. Themis — Cyprian's purpose,
mo shadow of ground for Peters’ treat — ? I am not sure that Cyp
ment of this and the Letter to Donatus — to say that he had been an i
os together forming an Apologia although, if not, he should bi
proper. still more guardedly. Heho
* Pontius omits it from the list of his says "videas" Quod Jd, c. 75
works. Jerome (Lc) praising itsleam- ad Demetrian. 15 'videbl
ΝΣ ...]
12 CYPRIAN THE CATECHUMEN,
continuous sufferings of believers in attestation of thei
credibility’,
The brilliant little pamphlet" cannot but have had ar
effect, none the weaker because the reasonings were not new
It was even more remarkable that language which had beer
half a century before the world should have been taker
up, pointed, edged, polished by the famous Thascius. Th
destructive details of the argument had indeed long fer
mented, Polytheism had halted, unable either to remow
them or repair them. The very attempts made to tinge th
legends with Christian morality pointed the fatal contrast!
From before Cicero's day until now the thoughtful Roma
had looked on religion with the same sad eye, Like Cicert
Cyprian must have long contemned Acca and Flora and th
Bald Venus, yet underneath all had recognised a supernatura
basis. Like him he had from time to time distrusted th
most refined pleasures: like him had despaired of society
And even now, though the Person of Christ had risen befor
him as the Regenerator, he could not yet grasp the concep
tion that the Faith would effect the reconstruction of societ?
or the amelioration of governments. A pure society with)
society, and eternal salvation for its holy members, is a)
that he yet hopes for. He deliberately excludes providence
from history, Nations rise and fall by some external inde
cipherable law of change, without conscience and withou
reward‘,
1 Acne esset probatio minus solida.,, — july notes in it are brewiéar and φέξη
dolor qui veritatis testis est, admovetur, dar.
ἂς, Qual Jd. 1g. This remark and —— 9 See Mahler (ap. x P6
the bomethrustatthe inadequacy of the Kirchengesch pp» 583 ff.
Roman gods originate (so faras 1 know) * Quod /d. & ' regna non merito acc
with our author, dunt sed sorte variantur."
Ὁ "The: qualities which Jerome (4 c.)
———
τ CYPRIAN BAPTIZED.
theatre with its unnatural subjects and impure spectacles.
the divinisation of lust.
In fixing upon the arena as a degradation in comparis!
of which slavery, that ‘abyss of misery, may be passed
silence, Cyprian is true to nature, The delight in blood h
become a systematized passion. He marks ‘the simplicit
*the manly health and grace, of the youths trained to mutu
‘murder under the eyes of their own fathers; the brother
*his turn in the den, above which sits the expectant si:
*the mother pays a higher price for the ticket to witness
* child's deathwound on a gala day, and there is not the fainte
*sense of guilt on any conscience"! In thus regarding t
unknown individual man and the affections which ought
centre on him as a precious thing, the Christian idea restos
something to the world which civilisation had taught
Antonine, an Aurelius to ignore. The appalling proportia
of the crime to which every city dedicated its grandest buildir
may be judged from the fact that when Cyprian becar
bishop, within two years from this time, the Emperors Phil
had just celebrated ‘The New Age*' on the completion
Rome's first thousand years, by the combats of that thousat
pair of gladiators, whom the gentle Gordian had provided
adorn his own triumph. |
Meantime the horrors of private licentiousness, from whi
the veil is from time to time rent by some cause célébre
which the very evidence is criminal, the corruption ai
inhuman procedures of the judicature, the degrading eoi
petition for official rank, and the trembling insecurity
military dominion, stamp the decline of public and domes
morality.
Were those the dreams of despondency and worl
* Ad Dow. γ. The indignation of — tothe ard consulship of the elder Phi)
*the Master’ had already boiled over jn Euseb. (Chromic. 11.) dates it wron
the De Spectaculie. Clinton, Fast. Rem. Y. |
3 &D.348.. The coins fix the ‘mils — 264—58, Jul Capitol, Gord. Tree
Yisrium secelum'or*novum smewlum' — 5 Ad Don. 9—13-
"em |
has not yet presented itself as the sole remaining refuge, —but
through inner purity, in sweet domestic life, in a round ol
prayer and study^ Such is the moral of the scene with
which the holiday evening closes,—the sober sues]
sweet chant, the memory stored with Psalms.
All this needed expansion into fuller richer life: th
was something when the fortunate man of the world began
even thus to live, The conditions of the new problem art
stated, though their connection is not yet perceived. On ont
side the needs of modern life, on the other his own spiritua
experience thus far as a pagan. 'I seconded my own be
setting vices; I despaired of improvement ; 1 looked on mj
“faults as natural and home-born; I even favoured them
*But so soon as the stain of my former life was wipet
*away by help of the birth-giving wave, and a calm pure ligh
‘from above flooded my purged breast; so soon as | drank o
‘the spirit from heaven and was restored to new manhood by
‘a second nativity; then, marvellously, doubts began to clear
“secrets revealed themselves; the dark grew light; seemin)
‘difficulties gave way; supposed impossibilities vanished ; |
“was able to recognise that what was born after the flesh am
‘lived under the rule of sin, was of the earth earthy, while tha
‘which was animated by the Holy Spirit began to belong t
'God?' These mighty experiences of his Baptism suppor
rather than invalidate his biographer's account of the Charit
and Purity of his devoted preparation for it. Pontius ha
known no parallel, he tells us, of such early fruits of Fait!
but to Faith he expressly attributes them, and so to the Grac
of God, ‘although the second birth had not yet illuminate
the novice with the whole splendour of the light divine*"
perceiving this * tone of mystical union
with God! to Je grounded on a pane
‘thetic view,’ and to be found only tin
these excite early writings."
2 Sit tibi vel oratio assidua vel lectio.
Ad Donat. 15.
* Ad Don. 4
? *Pro fie festinatione,’ *nonda
secunda nativitas novum hominem sple
lore Loto divina: lucis oculaverat," Pot
Vita. There is no need therefore
attribute to Pontius a semipelagianise
18 CYPRIAN AND C/ECILIAN.
into it in vain. The first outbreak of the anger of ὃ
separatist Donatus against the Catholics, his famous exclast
tion "What hath Emperor to do with Church 2 was occasion
by the mission of Paul and Macarius to Carthage fo
Constans ‘with relief for the poor’; ‘that poverty might
able to breathe, be clothed fed and comforted’ They cat
“bringing what we may almost call Beers |
‘upon the poor!." 1
To the sacrifice of his farms in their cause Cyprian €
not hesitate to add that of his delightful Gardens.
bought them in*, and insisted on his residing there.
on he was only too anxious to sell them again. Eve
thing shews him to have been free from family ties?
reasonable interpretation suggests that he entered the on
of Deacons. And as we shall have more than one occas
to remark the intimate relations subsisting between a Deat
and some Presbyter to whose labours he was speci
attached, so we find him, possibly in this capacity, taking:
his quarters in the house of his aged father in the faith,
Presbyter Cacilian‘, and by his attention soothing his |
|
? Optat tli 3. celibacy: Bp. Fell is worse ia
* Pont. Vit. Perhaps Pontius reading what Pontius says of yay
was concemed in this transaction, for so as to prove Cyprian mum
he says they were "de Dei indulgentia Pont. Vit. c. 3 'Illum (Job) non a
restituti" suadela deflexit! Fell ad loc. "eot
O. Ritschl, pp. 6, 7, conceives that tus ergo emt Cyprianus Let us
the Horii must have been confiscated — that prepossession is less blinding i
later and that Pontius mistakes this for — owndsy. In all his letters from 8
charitable sale now, Pontius’ personal tirement there is no reference toa)
knowledge seems to present to him no — of his own,
difficulty, nor yet the question how the — * I ean give no meaning to the |
confiseation was taken off of Pontius the Deseon *Erat.
? There is no token of hisever having — etiam de nobis contubernlum.,.
married. Pontus as a fine writer is ani,’ except that assigned to the
obscure. Vet it ix inexcusable for Pearson (4w. Cypr, A.D. 24th $
um due ‘AD. 250, X) to — still of ear body (the diaconate) h
| "what he says of quarters with Cacilim^ Pont. |
i) eiuf. ot eal clon bo mam Pontius himself resided with C)
‘Cyprian's family renounced in favour of — from before his first retirement t
—
WHAT PRESBYTERS WERE. 4 i
“οἵ the Office indicated by the sitting together of th
* Order! Tertullian does not attribute to the clergy spirit:
descent from the Apostles, nor regard them as having ber
typified by the Levitical Priesthood, or as occupying the
relative position towards the people. But he regards tl
Office as none the less 'sacerdotal' although in
ecclesiastical, and not immediately divine. ‘A woman
^ not permitted to speak in the church, nor yet to teach, n
“baptize, nor offer, nor claim to herself the rights of at
‘masculine function, much less of the sacerdotal office*! Tl
right of giving baptism belongs to the chief priest, ‘that
the bishop,’ and heretics offend in the moveable character,
their orders and in that they ‘enjoin sacerdotal offices
laymen*' Nevertheless the functions of the Order were 1
significant of any alicnation or absorption of the priestho
of believers; they involved during their exercise only)
suspension or dormancy. Where there is a destitution
clergy the sacerdotal powers of the laity revive, to the extt
of performing sacramental acts. *Where there is no Bet
“of the ecclesiastical order you (a layman) offer (the sactifi
‘and you baptize and are your own sole priest‘! |
The priesthood had been actually imparted by Christ
all Christians, for ‘Jesus the High Priest and Lamb* of)
3 Differentiam inter Ordinem et Ple-
self and his opponents. And tM
course is equally true a3 to the dod
of the exercise of the fanctions of
presthood by the Order only. ΑΝ
18, note the form Scewgestus."
* De Véland. Virgin. ον
3 De Prascript, harretic. 4.
* De Exh. Cart. τ, Adeo ob)
clesinscicl ordinis non est consent
offers et tinguis et sacerdos es tibl &
+ Adopting Sealigers emewdi
“Nos esas summus sacerdos et 4l
Patris de suo vestiens," De AMonapa
for the common reading magmas; |
pare Cypr, dd Fovtumat. nef.
which this passage was perhaps
᾿ |
CVPRIAN 'TO QUIRINUS—
NI
Helps to Laymen's Scripture Studies. |
Of that activity in one of its applications we have s
noble instance in at least two of the books of classified
skilfully grouped under pithy headings, entitled To Qurr|
—the ‘dear son? or layman, at whose request they
compiled, |
Since in Augustine's mention of the books the nat
TESTIMONIES is used, and Pelagius compiled his ' Testim
to thc Romans' in imitation and indeed in completion ol
as he himself stated,—and since this name appears à
earliest manuscript, if not in slightly later ones?, it is
bable enough that a title, which so neatly describes the!
was of Cyprian's own giving. |
It was also vulgarly called ' Against the Jews"; bul
perhaps not so much intended for as found to be a servic
manual in the contemporary controversies*.
fecerit, multa quie ad veterum exempla
jaxoram imitatione consimili prowe-
cutus..." lare debend facere: dicebat, "qul
Deo placere desiderant. et sic (per)
bonorum emnium exempla decurrens,
dum meliores semper imitatur, etiam
ipee se fecit imitsndum." Cf. Euseb
Chronicon, Ol. 338, 2-.
?. Hartel, p. 35, entitles it thus: *Ad
Quirinum (Testimoniorum Libri Tres),
which can reprevent nothing ancient,
and his own note is as follows: * Aer.
cd qp Pelag. V, iv. e. 21 (p. 480 d)
Cyprianum etiam ipre haresiarches is-
torum Pelagius cum debito honore com-
memorat, ui 4eriprpriorum librum
scribens, eum se asserit imitari, *hoe
se" dicens * facere adf Romanos quod ille
fecerit ait Quirinum. et cjuidem bri
e, 27 merito et ad Quirinum de hac re
absolutisaimar sententiam proponit cai
teitimonia divina. subjungeret. Hieron.
Dial, e, Folag. e. 35. quumque
latorem imo espletorem
Cypriani scribentis ad. Quirima
fateuur.” The Sesorian ws. {αὶ
Mai, or vun-1x. Reifferscht
“Testimoniorum incipit ad Quir
the word * explicit * before * T
orm refers of course to the pr
treatise. Surely from these fü
Would not ‘conjecture that the |
title was * Ad Quirinam ' merely,
the note at the end of Bk» ir» lt
imply that it was sometimes
NoMERI— Ad Quirinum numi
tit exe’? Hartel p. 184. Cf.
Cipriani ad Quirinum liber tt. e
ad eundem excerpta capitulorum |
Luxx. (Cod. M), Hartel p. ror
LXX. Is In error for cxx.
? See on Novatian’e conn
books p. tz3 and notes. Since
nearly a hundred passages colle
|
7
|
24 CYPRIAN "ΤῸ QUIRINUS—TESTIMONIES,
His touches upon Faith are well worth reflexion—
very difficulty of the subjects demands that dogma sl
simple; that belief is not independent of will; that ci
effect are proportionate, as elsewhere so in faith; tl
requires patience as an essential character of itself.
Cyprian's copious memory, to which Pontius bore
receives remarkable illustration from these books. T
ἃ work could be compiled out of Scripture at all by a
unassisted by concordance or index is surprising,
this that the selection is so well made, and that the
had been so recently introduced to the Bible. Her
that he had avoided diffuse selection, and confined hi
what a ‘moderately good memory ' had suggested *.
this would be truly unimaginable if he had been ¢
from the study of Scripture until he entered on the «
a presbyter, and had been taught only orally whilst f
layman?, Quirinus himself must have been such a
for Cyprian secks to provide him only with profitable
towards forming the first lineaments of his faith."
assumes that Quirinus will presently ‘be searching
* Scriptures old and new more fully, and reading thr
(which Idoubt)to what is here said ase "tam memoriosa mens."
to Novatianism, I do not know what ὀ ὠ ? This ultramontane thest
texts he means, But the fact does ed, and Cyprian's study cj
appear, I think, from the s$ih hesding limited to ‘about the inside
just mentioned standing without the — by Peters, p. 89, in the face
qualification which he would have added — account (Pit. », 3) how Cy
Iter. layman was teaching others
1 No. gs, Credendi vel non credendi Scripture, and of these very
libertatem in arbitrio positam. (Com- Quirinus So Novatlan to
pare Coleridge Αὐάν fo Kefietion,) No. at Rome, "Nam qui sincera
58; Dei nreana perspici non pose, et ium...non tantum tenetis ve
idcirco fidem nostram simplicem ese ^ animose docetis,’ De CH). ,
debere. No.43, Fidem totum prodesse, Peters alleges the bare fae
εἴ tantum nos posse quantum credimus. — *Quod Idola’ and the *ad
No. 48, Spem futurorum esse, et ile» — contain no quotations; to wl
fidem οἴτοα ea quie promlssa sunt pati- — ns iris true) the aim of those
entem esse debere, isan answer in full.
* Tot. Proc. compare Poat. Vit.
26 MIS CONSECRATION,
most influential members of the bench, held the 5
Some of the firmest friends of his after-life had be
first to that minority, but the five presbyters main
many years an organized opposition. The mass
brook neither opposition nor refusal. They surro
house and filled the avenues by which it was approa
concealed himself; he would fain have escaped by
but the tumultuous demonstration (a sufficient inc
the present security of the Christian population) Iz
he reappeared and signified his consent, when it
ceeded by rapturous joy.
Whether as in some untrustworthy statements c
Alypius and Ambrose he was carried away and cc
on the spot, or what further steps were allowed to
sary before his consecration, we do not know.
remain matter of doubt whether the bishops of hi
were summoned to elect him. He himself enumer
than once the requisites of a regular episcopate
and says that they were regarded in Africa as essen’
the choice of the neighbouring bishops of the provir
bled at the sce*; secondly, the ‘suffrage,’ that is, the
and support of the Plebes at that choice; thirdly,
ment of God, To these he adds, in vindicating the
of the election of Cornelius at Rome, the testimony
Ὁ Kp. 43. 4 cetus. auctoribus. — On 5. Patil eould be considere.
their identification see below, p. sro, — apowlle when at Damascus
ἢ. 4: is another matter.
? Pont. Vit. s. Ehope this is what — * By. 67. 5 *...apad »
Fontis means by *potuisset fortawe — fere per provincias univers
tunc illi apostolicum illud evenire, quod — ad ordinationes rite cclebr
voluit, ut per fenestram deponeretur, — plebem cui prepositus oi
jam tum apostolo etiam ordinationis δορὶ ejusdem provincie pr
honore similaresr! — Freppel conveniant, et episcopus di
songea un moment, mais son humilité presente," He also dis.
Tedowta ce trait de resemblance avec — "episcopatus deferretur’ )
Paul.’ Rather ‘if be was being made — ci...imponeretur."
like him in one way, by ordination, he ‘In Ej. 49 it may be obs
might (if he bad had his own will) have — says of himself (6) *...pe
been made like him im another, by — wuffragio,..daligirur,' and
escaping through the lattice.’ Whetber — episcoporum concu."
28 MANNER OF ELECTION.
the primates of the neighbouring provinces of Numi:
Mauritania’,
"The ‘suffrage’ of the laity was adequately signi
their presence and their testimony to good life and co
tion. There is no indication that the ‘suffrage’ imp!
recording of votes ; under the tutelary empire the we
long ceased to bear any such meaning* in political
and there is no ground for fancying that this sen
revived by the Church of Carthage.
In what way distinct from these the third requisit
Judgment of God '—was looked for is somewhat mo
cult to perceive, Some have supposed, as in the ch
Matthias, a casting of lots with prayer. Evidence of th
isnone*. But by those who relied upon the special pro
and guidance of the Father, His Judgment was recogi
the fact of the election and ordination proceeding in dv
without interruption’. Cyprian claims to enjoy ‘the Ju
of God and Christ’ asa token of the genuineness of his;
ship upon the ground that he is de facto bishop; th
* God who made him to be this is the God without wh
‘the sparrow falls ποῖ "
+ Miinter, Primordia Becl. Afr p45 — the previously expressed asst
* In Sp. 57. s the ordination made — sen, of. ci. vol. 111. p. $0.
in the presence ol a plebes fully conver- — ? H. Dodwell, Diss Cy. 1
sant with the life and conversation ofthe — the word κλῆρον to be evident
bishop elect is said to be “ὡς universe — ὁ The Coptic Canon 65 sex
fraternitatis sufiagio.’ ‘Suffragium ^ scribe α distinet appeal to T
sceleris is the support which the stern — following upon the enquiry wi
crime of Brutus gave to his own autho- elected person is of pure cl
rity. Quod δαί. p, *Suffragia smpe — "And if they all together have
repetita! are the eres with which the that he is such an one accord
mob demanded Cyprian for the lions, truth, God the Father and
Pont. Pit. 7. Christ ix our Suffragator begotten Son Jesus Christ our
ina gloss on Adeocatwm which inthe — the Holy Ghost being juslge
common text of J£. 55. 18 displaced — things are so..."
Justum in y Joh. ii. r—a word which — ? p. 66. τ, 9, to Puplenusy
seems to imply the utter disappearance — he would take the strongest |
of any idea of united opinions. The could. So also to Comeli
^ Voter’ in Copt. Can, 65 seem τὸ mean — Somewhat similarly an oppo
32 WHAT A BISHOP WAS TO HIM. ll
belonged equally to all believers? Had his office
naturally out of the presbyterate, as the
grown out of the whole community? or, if this eng)
passed the curiosity of the age, did he regard hit
delegated to be their head-priest by a nation of priest
Or did he regard his office as something different
from all such conceptions of it? as a line traced in th
Plan? indicated and assumed, if not defined, in t
Testament? deducible from it by reasoning, such as
from the same writings the doctrine of the Holy Tri
ἃ power not there reduced to terms, but constant ine
endowed with a grace specific, exclusive, efficient ?
"These questions receive a full answer in Cyprian’s *
As matter of order, the eminence of the rank of tht
was visible to the Roman world. He was the Chie
Christian Society; the confiscation of his property was
for a time the only, edict of persecuting magistrates.
assembly from the midst of the separate semicirch
presbyters' rose his chair or Throne, already the t
name and symbol of his authority. He was speci
Preacher* in his church, the chief instructor. Again
the principal arbitrator in disputes, As to moi
discipline, whether clerical or lay, he was ‘Judge in
stead’ of disqualifications" from communion, prog
restoration, suitableness for any office. But in this
Cyprian felt at all times bound to act on the princip
in one of his earliest letters he lays down—'to do
“without the information and advice of presbyters,
‘and laymen‘!
1 Epp. 39. 4« 40) &c- nec episcopo honores
? Bp. $5 thedegeram et epixopo sui «t cathedr reservantes,
fractante cognoveram. And of false presentibus et judican
quorum — fractatus...mortale (ἐσ. plebe). ZA. 17. 1, αἵ. 3
virus infundit. De Unit. 10. One of the — 14: αι 19. 2. Cf. as regards
sadnesses of the exile {s...quod...nec Af. 38. 1...solemus vos ant
fractaniet episcopos audiat. £j. 38. 4. — et mores ac merita singulorur
i.
34 THE ANTIENT BISHOP AND THE MODERN.
bishop is prohibited from sacrificing by the Mosaic st
against uncleanness; his communicants are tainted by hij
The presbyterate is the Levitic tribe*, exempt from we
office, debarred from worldly callings, living on the offe
of the people, as their predecessors on the tithes, devotec
and night to sacrifice and prayer. So precise is the 4
cation, that the people are to rise at their coming in purs
of the Levitic direction*.
Again there is another aspect of the same office. |
Apostles were bishops, Matthias was ordained a ‘bis
And still the bishop is the Apostle of his flocks ]
the Twelve through successive ordinations he derives
character’, His order is of divine creation. The diac
is the institution of his predecessors.
He is not only a Judge. He is Judge in Christ's st
Contempt of his government’ is the parent of heresy;
expressly condemned in the Law, in the books of Samu¢
the example of St Paul and of our Lord. To maintai)
same faith and worship and yet invade the office of
rightful bishop is identically the sin of Korah* For
Laws about the High Priest are not merely applicable t
Bishops; they were ultimately intended for them, and
they apply to them alone.
3 Bp 65-91 67. 1,9. cedunt, £p. 66. 4.
Pept © Ep sg. s ‘vice Christi! Cy
* Levit xix. 32, so interpreted 7z;- — use of Zuder not Arbiter is imp
tim. fii. Bg. ‘on acconnt of his legal exacinest:
* ...apostolos id est episeopos et pre — 7 EA 66, EA s BA 29, δ
poritos, Bf. 3.3 Cf. ZA 45.3. The The Scriptures quoted are Deut
reading ‘de ondinando in locum Tudx τα, which is cited five times, T
«φένορον Ep. 67. 4 (Hart. p. 738), isnot — viii 7 Sir. lic ag gt. Acts sail
only supported apparently by all at55., Marth. vill. 4. Jo. xviil. 23, 43.
against edd., butis required bythe ‘epis: x. 16.
coporum εἰ sucerdotutm’ which follows. * ip. 69. 8
Apostolis vicaria ordinatione suc-
Tm
36 THE BISHOP OF THE THIRD CENTURY. ἡ
of each no machinery could be better adapted tha)
present, and ancient standards were not uniform. No.
analogy is that of England, where a minister of the C
as representatives of the diocesan presbyterate accej
reject, and the comprovincial bishops consecrate’,
Fourth, the presbyters had no voice or vote in the elc
of the bishop distinct from that of the laity: their infi
was great, but in government they scarcely appear à
order? The very name of priesthood (as represente
sacerdotes, sacerdotium) did not descend from the episo
upon them until after Cyprian wrote. Their then design:
as the Levitic body of the church, similarly descended.
the deacons*.
Fifth, while the virtue of Aaron's Priesthood and the)
of Apostleship still flowed, as it were, from a divine s
through the world, those who received it were not a οἰ
with power to invite or coopt or to increase their nur
at their pleasure. It was the Christian plebes which to |
individual bishop was the fountain of his honour* Ti
they who by the ‘aspiration of God" addressed to him th
4 See. Dr Pusey, The Councils of the
Church, p. 108.
® Presbyters in Cone, v. de Bap. αν
are ‘aid "adesse'—'ylurimi Coepiscopi
cum Conpresbyteris qui aderant,’ £f.
Tete
? Perhaps the first use of Levite for
Deacons is nearly contemporary with
Cyprian’s application of Zesizica tribus
(Ep. 1. 1) t presbyters (A.D. circ. 245)
Origen, Hom. xil. 3, in Jerem. (Delarue
v.d. 196 [1740]), and it is in a way
which sbews his use of both words to be
unfamilinr. ἘΠ ru οὖν καὶ τούτοιν ταῖν
lepers {(ϑείκννμε δὲ weis. πρεσβυτέρουν
diis) ἢ ἐν τούτοις τοῖν περιεστηκόσι λαὸν
λευίταιε (λόγω δὲ robe διακόνονε) ápaprá-
ve... The first formal use of them 1
ἵππος is in Δ). Come Carth. a
nethlio, A.D. 390, Can. 11. (Labb.
1244), where to a question put »
words episcopus, presbyter et dii
Genethlius. himself replies, uit
crosanctos antistites, et Dei sacr
nec non et Levitas In this fo
relins repeats it Cof, Cam. Hee,
Can. ti (Labbe, ri, e, 1261), In)
of Z1. Conc, Carth, and in Can
HIE. Come, Carth. 4.9. 39g (al. 3
form appears in titles only,
Canons, And so it spreads.
* A bishop could ordain a lr
subdeacon, a deocon, even ἃ pre
without more than a nominal re.
to the pietes, Wut the whole δαὶ
saceritale could not elect ἃ bith
38 THE PRIESTHOOD OF THE LAITY.
lam not so sure that there is no trace of them in Ire
We have seen that in Tertullian they exist side by si
clear enunciations of the doctrine of an essential prie
inherent in all Christians, but exercised in ve
churches by the organic ministry alone.
This universal Lay-priesthood is not dwelt τὶ
Cyprian, but there is no sufficient reason to questi
belief in it. Nor is it a specially Christian doctrine
coxval with the religious instinct of mankind. It §
doubt been obscured in pagan Greece, and even ia.
many shrines had special endowments and ministers,
the last both retained traces of functions appropri
priest-kings. But the principal sacrificing priests
Roman state, the pontifis and the augurs, were ‘lay
not separated from the rest of the people. The celebr
the sacrifices were generals, senators, and magistrates’
Jewish nation had been founded as a priesthood, in wh
functions proper to the whole manhood of the rae
deputed first in theory to the eldest sons and then
single tribe, yet frequently resumed for sufficient ea
kings and prophets, This royal priesthood became,
Epistle to the Philippians, 1868, pp. incormuptibile sermonis constat
a7 three he parallels with the ^
+ dremeus handles the episcopate prophets, doctors’ of 1 Cor.
more ‘ns the depository of apostolic δήσενε, ἦν. a6. See also the co
tradition’ than as ‘the centre of unity’ — ment of the snme section and
(Bp. Lightfoot, ef. ci. pp. 335. S). ἵν. 26, fii ay ve 20 νον
because his whole object is doctrinal, — apostoli tradiderunt ecclesias.
not governmental, The whole Church In Justin it is true, Disi.
ds to him a 'depositorium dives,’ into 116, that the whole Christi
which the apostles stored ‘omnia que — are the high-priestly family,
sint veritatis,’ « Mores i. 4. The must mark also the church-fe.
‘notes however of a church (powessing — the προεστὼς alone, Apolog.
chariamata and so) capable of witness» προεστὼς, λαβὼν, εὐχαριστίαν,
img to apostolic truth he makes to be λὺ ποιεῖται, Οὗ ewreMearrer
three, viz 'apud quos est (1) ea qux καὶ τὴν εὐχαριστίαν...
est ab apostolis ecclesim successio, ()) —— * ..flamiicm et smdiles s
et id quod est sanum et irreprobebile — Tert. de Jdolatr. 16.
conversationis, (3) et inadulteratum et
-
40 THE REMNANT OF PEACE, |
the see of Rome, determined or in the least developed |
belief*. E
And whence then did this form of Christian though
originate? I see no proof, and to me it is incredible, thi
he or other Africans should have derived any such schem
consciously or unconsciously, from Pagan constitutions, whic
appeared to them all in the light of a purely demoniag
and satanic system. Nor yet is it possible that they inherite
them from any J'udaisimg forms of Christianity. For a
only is sacerdotalism not one of the characteristics for whit
Judaizers are ever reprehended*, but in fact the very essent
of Judaism lay in looking back to the literal circumcisio
the literal passover, the literal centralising of the church upe
Jerusalem. Towards Gentile Pricsts, towards Levites fg
the uncircumcision, they had no propension. iu]
heathenism nor to legalistic sects can we trace back
fruitful powerful theory now accepted in Africa.
Was it then but an unconscious straining first of languag
then of feeling, lastly of thought, which gradually warp
with a hieratic distortion offices originally politic and didact
Did the contemplative study of numerously fulfilled typ
draw men by a seemingly irresistible attraction to imagine!
actual continuity, totally unreal, between a sacrificial prie
hood and what was designed only for a hortatory college?
Or, was the belief a legitimate development of the pl
ciples of the apostolic church, parallel with and analog?
to the growing light on cardinal doctrines which similal
nothing but use could illustrate? And are all the forms.
^ Ὁ. Ritschl (pp. $e, 223, 233)
rightly states that the theory was not
developed without the events. No
pmetical theory of a polity could be.
Dut when he says that it broke out
a5 a new perception in Ap, 43, he not
only overlooks the early Xj. ja, bat
fails to discern what is more important,
that the conception of the Church wl
Cyprian applies to life in his ὅδε ¥
ings requires for its potential mid
that theory which the formu 40 #
consolidates.—[The test was wn
some years before Ritschl appeum
? Bp. Lightfoot, eg. eif. pp. #578
42 THE DISCIPLINE OF PRACE,
that had defended the state-religion rose before an
which, still standing in its old place sixty years later!,
to reproach the departing schismatic with the
Cyprian and of Unity.
Of his sermons, unless the tract on Patience is a sermon
remodelled, not a record has reached us: a singular
to the vast monuments of Augustine's preaching. We should
have gladly learnt the tenor of that first exhortation
after the usage of the African bishops, he opened and
with the double® salutation ‘In the Name of the Lord,’ and
have caught the first note of those thirteen years of πεῖσαι
able teaching. But there is in the whole man such
that we can scarcely question that, as in his letters
pamphiets, so from his bema Christian life was taught a
social science. ‘In the quiet time he had served discij
is his own epigrammatic tale of his first few months. Thee
was nothing wavering in him, or tentative ; there was no feck
ing for a clue He entered on restoration and organization
with a theory clearly ascertained, and a practica] devotion.
its consequences. ‘The church is one. She holds and
‘all the power of her Spouse and Lord, And in her we pie
‘side. For her honour and her unity we do battle. He
*and her glory we alike maintain with faithful self- iT
“We have God's leave to water God's thirsting people, We
‘keep the bounds of the springs of life*' Such was
estimate of his duty and his responsibility, To revive i
a worldly laity, with a staff of caballing clergy, the reali
of their professions and of their offices, to reanimate chutth
life with half-forgotten forces, was his first task, and i
that primitive age no light one. Not only had he from tht
churches. See R. Burn's Rome and the
Campagna, Introd, p. 1. That used δ, note p. 162, ed. Alis
by Cyprian’s congregation was main: nael. Paris, τόϑι.
tained afterwards as a church. * Ep. 59 δ.
TOputiig'emtalürelocosuo!&c. ὁ ΑΔ, 78, tr
Easter,
AD. $40,
AD, 1:0.
—
44 CYPRIAN BISHOP.
centres of our energies, The new sect had been for tl
part of a century not only unharmed but prosperoi
hollowness and insincerity should have grown up it
inevitable, We can but recognise as they did themsel
the persecution of the church was mercy to the worl
shall find reason to believe that its end was answerec
for the present, we shall sce that the troublous year
followed were more favourable by far than profounde
could have been to the grand combinations of one mast
XL
Discipline—Clerical and Lay.
We must now pass in review the measures of C
eighteen months! of peace, remembering that, illustn
they are, they are but a prelude,
One passing glimpse of what seem active method
him to us with a band of the ‘Teaching Pre
examining into the qualifications of Readers, testing
were preparing for the clerical office, and placing the a;
in a kind of rank as' Next the Clergy.’ On one su
sion these agree to appoint Optatus one of the Reade
“Teacher of Catechumens,—to do for many what (
had done for Cyprian, but still as a Reader*— Again
! Counting from June 248 Av construction, ^Presbyterl do
See p. 41, note 2. like Aspasius in Passio SS. 1
? EM 99 "-. νος Jam pridem com ΑΜχοη, xill.; the Doctores 8
tauni consilio clero proximos feceramus, distinct Order as in Track)
quando amt Saturo die Pascha semel — X77. Agoriles xi. xv..orSheph
alque iterum lectionem dedimus, aut mar, Vis. ui. 5. See Dod
modo cum presbyteris doctoribus lec- Cyp, vi. I cannot think *
tores diligenter probaremus, Optatum — semel atque Iterum lectionen
inter lectores doctorem audientium con« means ‘we gave him two J
stituinus, examinantes, dic In this in- rend aloud in examination,"
teresting passage there must be some — Ef. 38. 2 "...dominico legit,
fault, lor frerbylerir cannot be dative: 38. 1 he speaks of his "p
Dr Hort conjectures that cona may — consulting presbyters, deacon
have disppeared after cum, Hartel om the fitness of candidates,
reads doctorunt, which ix not s Cyprianie
46 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CLERGY,
an instance of that careful weighing of individual case
lays the basis of permanent enactments. An Actor, ἡ
left the profligate and corrupting stage! as a matter à
in obedience to Christian principles, felt no scr
imparting his skill of voice and gesture to heathen
or slaves. He had no power to enfranchise, or w
them from their profession, why hesitate to impre
elevate, perhaps chasten their performance? Similar ca
every day impede practical morality, and the Afric:
third century was rife with them, With the touch)
Cyprian exposes the man who was ready to form o
take the place from which he had escaped conscience-s
suggests his maintenance, if he really has no other
of living, by the church; and offers him, if Thena
poor, food and clothing at Carthage.
The difficulty Eucratius had felt in dealing with t
lay in the absence of any rule excluding from the
elocutionists or others who only trained actors. A,
fragment belonging to the second half of the third ¢
supplied the omission. ‘If one has the mania of th
‘shows, or if he has been a declaimer in the thea!
“him cease or let him be cast out. If he teach the
“(in theatrical shows) it is good that he should cc
"he does not make a trade of it, let him be forgive
A.D. 305 or 306 the Synod of Elvira enacts the rule rt
a converted performer* to renounce his profession
pg. 29.) His successors appear in forms the groundwork of ths
Councils upto A.D. 641. See Appendix collection which now appes
on Cities. Bighth Book of our Greek tex
? Cf, Bingham (1858), vol ἵν, p85. (operit). pest, Comstt. vil,
? Bunsen, Aippolytus (1852), vol. rt. ἐπὶ δκηνῆν ἐάν niv προσίῃ day
p. $14) i is later than Cyprian'sletter, — παυσάσθωσαν ἢ ἀπυβαλλέσθι
if not based upon it. * Cone. Eliberitan, can. 6
? From the Alexandrian form of the minus synonymous under
Apontolic Constitutions which iis still — perors with Austere, L. C. ]
extant in the Abyssinian text and — Smith, Diet. of Greet and Ai
Arabic translation therefrom, as wellas — guities, 4.v. (ed. 1891).
sin the Coptic and Syrinc; and which
|
48 OF CLERICS NOT TO WE TUTORES.
“of Tutor was one which a clerk, if he had no legal exemption, κῷ
“compelled to serve ‘That again ihe sigo e ETE
still Inter times did engage in business (a practice allowed by th
fourth council of A.D. 398), and ‘were therefore very far from.
*always engaged in serving the altar and sacrifices, and.
“prayers and supplications.’ That, although the evils which flowe
from clerics taking the office of * Tutor" were so many that Justinin
prohibited it, yet they were ‘at first’ (in Mr S/s opinion)
persons to undertake such a charge, and actually did so (since
17th canon of the 4th council of Carthage orders that, not th
bishop himself but, his archpresbyter or archdeacon should tak
charge of widows and orphans). It is besides ‘exceedingly prt
‘posterous’ to imagine that the bishops of Cyprian's age, whom h
censures for secularity, should have passed ‘any law against aeculd
pursuits’ when meantime even Cyprian himself was ‘the victim €
such an appointment from his own spiritual father Ciecilius, ‘10%
‘nothing,’ he adds in a note, ‘of the wife who was also emi
*to him; and I suspect that a young African widow, probably πὸ
‘much out of her teens, would have been quite as serious a charg
“as the children.’ |
It is necessary to quote this passage, not because it is flippan!
‘but because it evinces that the critic has not possessed himse
οἵ the most accessible information In the whole argument
do not detect one correct statement. It is well known that th
power of a Tutor or Curator had ‘respect to the property aa
pecuniary interests, not the persons of the pupilli’ or warde
was a trustee, His business was ‘the preservation of
during minority’; to guard against the minor's being defrauded
debts could not be recovered, nor were engagements valid,
incurred by a minor without his sanction. He was also bound #
improve the property. The office of Twtor subsisted up to (0
ward's fourteenth year; that of Curafor between the fourteenth an
the twenty-fifth, at which he came of age.
There is no reason to suppose that Cyprian was Tutor or Curilt
of the property of his friend's family, Pontius describes a deathbé
scene (accersitione jam proxima) in which Ceecilius commende
them (commendavit) personally to bis convert's affection (pietabt
dt was improbable that Cyprian should have been named Tull
in the will, for by blood he was not related to Ciccilius, and Ib
usage was so invariable by which the nearest relations and n8
heirs were appointed Tutors, that it was a special slur if any!
! Beg, Mr G. Long’s article Dict. Gh, — called upon ‘negotia gerere" and ‘aust
and Rom, Ant. ritatem Ínterponere."
? The re and the pecunia, He was
50 THE GENUINENESS OF THE FIRST LETTER.
if we assume the reality of that earlier canon mentioned by Cypra
"Unless it existed previously, the Council would have left mation
this incomplete position, that tutors could only become clerics
resigning office, but that clerics might freely become
Assume however that clerics were already forbidden to becot
tutors, and we see why they are not forbidden in canon 6, Aga
clerics being already incapable of becoming tutors, and others be
now also excluded, the question naturally arises, which is settled
canon $, ‘Is it impossible for a tutor, and persons holding =
posts, to become clerics?’ The omission in the Sixth and the inclusi
in the Eighth canon are both simply explained.
Lastly, there is a mistake even in the assertion that a Tul
was obliged to serve unless he had a legal exemption. Tho
tutors (called deyitimi) who were appointed by magistrates wb
people died intestate were so compelled. But a tutor appoint
by a will could ‘abdicate,’ or renounce. Certain offices were ho
ever considered by the law as exemptions, and the African bisho
of the third century desired to make the clerical office such |
exemption by internal regulations, since the government could t
sanction it, until in the reign of Justinian, the canon was adopt
into the imperial legislation. The sole penalty then lay at
time against the testator, and none was possible except the
of his name from the intercessions for the departed. No ste
could be taken against the cleric tutor, who might know nothing
his appointment until the will was read, and who certainly could t
assign to his heathen neighbours, as a ground for renunciation, Ul
he was a Christian presbyter.
Perhaps none of Mr Shepherd's ‘criticisms’ had more fot
in shaking confidence in Cyprian's letters than his attack on i
one. Yet the objections are merely legal and historical misco
ceptions, The circumstances of the letter are, as we have shey
perfectly consistent with the rather intricate conditions of the tim
the early existence of the disputed canon is demonstrated by 4
wording of the later ones, and the authenticity of the story illusteal
by the very names,
And here, lastly, we must add the consistency with which
find a member of the same family of Gemini speaking as bill
of the same town of Furni (Semtt. Eff. 59) several years later in
Council of Δ. 256. It is not impossible that it may have δὲ
Geminius Faustinus himself, and that he too may be the Bist
Geminius (£f. 67) who signed the synodic letter in A.D. 254.
52 THE VIRGINAL LIFE. |
He treats it as ἃ practical and precious institution,
breaking like Tertullian into wild reproaches against m:
corrigible vanities which occurred, nor yet glorifying the
with the title of Brides of Christ Self-dedication to!
unmarried state was considered a Christian * Work" in
same sensc in which Almsgiving was 'Work'' But
were at present no associations for common life, no
head, no peculiar dress*, no specia! regulation for
charity or liturgy. The right conception of the ‘work’
says Tertullian, (and that it usually prevailed, he
that it should be as secret as almsdecds and prayer. |
viously we are in the rudiments of organization when Cypr
suggests to the elder women to assume some position, a
the younger to pay them some deference. No
giance seems to be expected from the order even to
bishop, for while his assurance that he addresses them ἢ
tionately rather than officially ' indicates that his offici
tion was recognised, he adds that he is too conscious of!
own inferiority to claim the right to criticizes’ The
duties of all Christian women were theirs, only so much m
widely as the fuller leisure allowed—to visit the sick, to:
the offering of the sacrifice and the preaching of the
The visiting of orphans and widows, whether poor or
the visiting of damoniacs, with continuous prayer and
to be cnabled to use on their behalf the gift of
if they had reason to believe that they had received
intercession for the church, for the holiness of its clergy?
for its deliverance from false clergy, are employments suggei
in the early letters which pass under the name of 1
To speak in church, teach, baptize or do any clerical act!
j
^Tetab M Wege gy ch db Omer soribus theite mapisteriom
54 PERILS,
restoration of the usual dress. Cyprian has no co
against departures from the rule. And if this be
may remark here one of the instances in which Ter
Montanism was no bar to his catholic influence. |
Christian women had now refrained as a rule fo)
century from public festivals and arena spectacles as
from temples But an incipient tendency to reform
appears when the Virgins are desired to stay aw;
weddings on account of the coarseness of the custo
from the baths in which both sexes appeared in undre
The popularity and sentimental admiration whi
attended the order led to vast evils. Even Cyprian
his moderation ranks the Virgin next to the Martyr.
exaltation, sense of security, led many, the solitary t
of heathen hearths, or of circles in which Christian d
had not yet dissipated heathen indifferentism on su
jects, or which shared their blind confidence in the n
a vow, to seck homes in the houses, and even share th
bers of Christian men and clerics who had bound the
under the same obligation’. The power of ecstatic
may confessedly sometimes overpower even continuous
tion, and Cyprian wishes in dealing with this dreadful
not to assume that every such case was one of actua
ἃ Τὸ ἴα, as Bingham, vol. 11. p.404 lous belief that only Christin
ed. 1853), writes, true that Tertollia's then took the bathe
object was to induce all virgins to we — A. 4.
the grave habit of matrons; but he — * .,.dum adhue separari
haa also in view a body of virgins, wo — possint, Z. 4. 8, Chrysosty
though they did not live in a society ar gui ap. se habent virg.
were distinctly dedicated. De V. V. 16 — doe assume it, and wei
*Nopsisti enim Christo! Ch 14. plea of ‘Perfection,’ *F|
? Bunsen must have forgotten this * Piety,” or * Brotherhood."
pasage, De Hah Virg. 19, when in — Nyssa de Viepinitate, 13, 98
Hippolytus and his age, vol. τι. pr 313. Ege za ad Zwitechium, and E
ed. 1852), he refers an apostolic canon — Zferer. 78, tr, agree with hl
to the East on account of this pro- setting aside any such ques)
miscuous bathing, Rettberg’s anti- the mere fact as a scandal,
monasticism leads him into the ridicu. excommunication, ZA 55 (
56 ‘THE DRESS OF VIRGINS!
signing rank or home (which indeed no existing organization
enabled them to do), sought in thcir resolution protection
against social corruption with independence and respect
among the Christians. Τὸ them no occasion presented. itself
obviously requiring a change in their dress or ornaments,
In fashions half Roman, half Tyrian they still ‘buried the
neck!” in masses of gold chain and pearl, still piled the hair
in grape-like clusters, loaded arms and feet with bracelets,
outlined the almond-like eye with antimony, dyed the cheeks
‘with crimson falsehood,’ tipped toes and fingers with henna.
A strange sketch of a sister! Modes against which Cyprian
alleges Scripture, sense and feeling, Yet this can have been
but a small portion of the picture. We may be sure there
was much to reverence and much to love in that which
excited in the great organizer, in the world-worn lawyer,
such intense enthusiasm.
Grave matter for reflection in this essay are the ‘reverence
and fear’ with which he scarce reproves, the self-abasement
with which he asks their prayers*, The motives are at once
too low and too lofty upon which he lauds their choice of a
virgin-life,—the escapes namely from marriage-trouble, their
union with Christ, their anticipated superiority in the resur-
rection-life. There is latent in these motives a subtle selfish-
mess and pride, such as it seems true foresight might have
shunned without waiting for experience. But woman's un-
approached power in alleviating human wretchedness, and in
the revival of aspirations after purity; the influence of great
examples of self-sacrifice upon a sordid and luxurious age;
the effective operation of frequent intercession, are more
substantial and less obtruded motives. They were real then,
and they are real for ever; still destined to be at last as
effective as they are sound in shaping the nobler monasti-
cisms of the future?
3 De Hab. Virg. a, 48, at. ? The two Epistles to Virgins, extant
3 De Hab. Virg. ὃν ch 34 in Syriac, ascribed to Clement of Rome,
58 CYPRIAN'S MANIPULATION
predecessor he ascribes the invention of the toilet, ‘woman's
world,’ to apostate angels who lived before the flood; but he
spares us Tertullian's Byronic picture of spirits sighing for a
lost heaven yet scheming an eternal hell for their beloved.
He cannot part with ‘the evil presage’ of the then fashion-
able *flame-colour* of hair, but avoids suggesting the horror
of wearing ‘the despoilment of the strange woman, of the
head devoted to gehenna."
"The warning to the innocent though over-drest girl ‘thy
‘beholder hath in heart gratified his lust; thou art become a
‘sword to him" is softened into ‘though thou fall not thyself
‘thou destroyest others, and makest thyself as it were a
*sword and a poison draught to the beholders?' ‘ Modesty
is sacristan and priestess of the shrine’ becomes ‘in those
shrines the worshippers and priests are we'
So he prese ¢ turn ‘Plainly the Christian will
* glory even in the. flesh, ut only when it has endured,—torn
‘for Christ's sake; that the spi - crowned in it, not
'that it may draw the eyes and : - ade youth after it/—but
preserves it more * 1i slory in in the flesh it
Ambrose dole th le:
criticizes - severely. the
lxm.
OF TERTULLIAN'S STYLE. 59
treatise must have appeared very perfect in style. It fur-
nishes him with illustrations both of the ‘ grand’ or * moving?”
style, and of the ' temperate?"
‘Viz, de Hab. Virg. 15 Si quis
Pageodi artifex, ἐσ 16 auspicaris.
"Vin, de Hab. Virg. 3 Nunc t
angecit, and 23 Quomodo ἐσ end.
‘Aug. de Doctr. Christiana iv. 21. (47,
48 49), "Quos duos ex omnibus pro-
pooere volui.” The classification (iv. 17
(4l) adopted perhaps from Cic. de Orat.
1L xxix 128, 119, is (1) ut doceat,
poterit parva submisse; (2) ut delectet,
modica temperate ; (3) ut flectat, magna
granditer dicere. In ecclesiastical elo-
quence all the topics are ‘magna,’ but
the ‘submiss’ style is for instruction,
the ‘temperate’ for praise or blame, the
‘grand’ for arousing energy.
CHAPTER IL
THE DECIAN PERSECUTION.
L
The Roman Theory of Persecution.
THE disorder and worldliness which have been described
were such as in Cyprian's convictions were past correction
from within. Possessed with this idea he was visited by
intimations of coming trial which wore a supernatural
character And it came. The Decian persecution was co-
extensive with the Empire, and aimed at the suppression of
Christianity by the removal of its leaders, It was not per-
ceived that it had passed the stage in which it depended on
individuals.
But before we enter on this scene of our history, it may be
well to lay down the principles upon which harmless people
were so cruelly handled on account of their opinions by the
law-loving and tolerant state of Rome. The question admits
of a less simple answer from the fact that the Christian legists
of the Theodosian and Justinian codes have expunged the
obsolete statutes. If the chapter of Ulpian ‘Of the pro-
consul's office which recited" the provisions applicable to
Christians in the middle of the 3rd century, were extant we
should have the answer to our hand. We can however frame
one correctly though circuitously,
(1). In the first place the Julian Law of Treason included
among state offences and in very general terms the holding
1 On the visions of Cyprian and τ * Lactant, Dit. Zmatit. v v1.
others see infra,
62 THE DECIAN PERSECUTION.
amenable to laws of Treason. Delation was easy and en-
riched.
(2) The application of tests was familiar to the Roman
magistracy. While a slave or provincial could be tortured,
ἃ frceman, suspect of religious engagements hostile to the
State, could be summoned to take part in a sacrificial feast,
or at least to offer incense before an imperial statue, to which
the least mark of disrespect was treason. Whatever other
scruples were allowed for, none might doubt the present
divinity of the emperor; no beliefs could interfere with a
mechanical act of obedient veneration,
Imperial edicts possessed by the Lex Regia‘ the force of
Law, Such were issued from time to time to require the
general application of this test. It was further competent for
any magistrate who feared the growth of a dangerous class in
his district, or was pressed by popular feeling, to summon a
neighbourhood or any residents in it to take the test under
former edicts. This mode of action is exhibited in far the
larger number of arrests which led to confessorship and
martyrdom. ‘Persecution’ of this kind, as the Christians
very naturally called it, was incessantly simmering in some
province or other, intensified by the policy of one emperor,
moderated by the broader policy of another, at times ceasing
for years in particular districts,
(3. The difficulties of soldiers. To quit the army pre-
maturely without approved cause was treason. For a Christian
to remain unsuspected or if suspected to avoid disobedience
was scarcely possible. The sacrifices to the standards, the
military oaths, the religious decorations, the festivities, the
wreaths distributed not simply in honour of the emperor but
in honour of his divinity, were endless snares. Thus the
martyrologies name many soldi And if the victims of
+ Qnod principi placait legit habet — (1) y Gaume, Rveolution, tom. v1. c t.
vigorem utpote cum Lege Regia. popu- Ji duitt, t, tits» On which see
lus el et in eum omne suum imperiumet 1. B. Moyle's note (ed. 1883), wol. 1
potestatem confer. Ulp.ap Dig.i.4 — p-95-
$94 THE OUTBREAK OF THE PERSECUTION,
divulged the tortures seemed iniquitous indeed. Tertullian’
and Cyprian? justly exclaimed against a ferocity which actually
reversed the law, by applying to those who without hesitation
confessed the crime of Christianity tortures which in all other
cases were reserved for such as denied the legal charge,
Finally, as their numbers grew the fruitless attempt at re-
pression was aggravated almost to desperation lest the whole
system of public worship and of that domestic religion, on
which rulers relied for sobriety of morals among a large class
of the population, should go down before the undisguised
contempt of men who acknowledged none of the authorised
sanctions and were believed to live in private shamelessness,
1L
The Outbreak of the Decian Persecution.—Rome.
Philip been so tolerant of these Christians that he
1 legends as a penitent on Easter
Eve* Decius was virtuoust He
in death worthy to be ranked
e'' The luxury of his pre-
ths, the prevalence of
ful forms of dissolution
g that one man,
al ter thi y-eight years of
a
66
hollow cell,the addition of* Martyr’ has been deeply scratched *—
Without proper authentication* or in the vacancy of the sec
THE CONFESSORS AT ROME,
the appellation could not be attached even to so sacred à
grave in the catacomb chapel The age in which martyrs
were lightly multiplied was not come.
Neither was the fanatic zeal for martyrdom at flood, The
Roman Church would not now select one of her leading men
for immediate death, and for sixteen months elected no bishop’.
The clergy of the metropolis was a regularly organized body,
well able to act in concert, and requiring more than a passing.
notice to enable us to understand their remarkable relations
with Carthage and her bishop.
Τῆς wisdom of the Church was everywhere not to traverse
or break up, but to adopt administrative lines and civil areas
Δ The lettercatter of Fabian's in-
scription was not a good one like his
predecessors. "The letters are unequal,
The apices not elegant or exact, the
punctuation ugly. The inscription is
not a later honorary one, like Anteros's.
‘The abbreviation is unusual, (im an
honorary inscription it would have been
fall MAPTTP, and is weakly cut or
rather scratched after the slab was in
its place,
ΞῚ believe this explanation of de
Rossi (A. 5, vol, 11, pp. 58299.) to be
real. Compare Optat, ἐν 16 ‘vet αἱ
martyris, sed wenfum vindicari and
Cyp. Ef. 12. 2.
? The ulttamontane statement of
this fact is that ‘it appeared to the
"pagans that the most terrible blow
they could inflict on the Church was
to hinder the election of a successor t0
Saint Peter’ Freppel, 8: Cygeim,
perg It is needless to say that there
is no evidence for any of the three
assertions involved,
=
68 |THE DECIAN PERSECUTION.
number; and since in the persecution of Diocletian (t
century later) there were ‘upwards of forty basilicas*’ i
been concluded too hastily? that each presbyter had cl
οἵ one basilica. This is contrary to all we know of
organization. Only in the smallest country places werechu
anything but collegiate. To each of the deacons there Y
subdeacon and six acolytes Exorcists, readers and |
watchers amounted to fifty-two.
Such was the administrative body required for the
thousand* Christians of Rome in the middle of the
century, and such as remained at liberty of the scven*
Treasurers or Visitors, called Deacons, together with the
or more Presbyters, now took in commission the Epis
conduct of internal affairs and of the relations with
1 Optatus, ii. 4. Neander thinks this
number must be exaggerated; but these
‘basilicas were not public buildings, bat
those which were frequently attached
to great houses.—R. Bum, Rome and
the Campagna, p. l. The need for dis-
and small congregations entirely
explains the number, Many of these
would be like private chapels, while in
the regularly uscd ones there would be
always ἃ consessus.
Ὁ By Routh, Rel. 5. vol. ttt. p. 60.
? This estimate formed by Bishop
Burnet (Travels in Suitserland, /taly...
(1685-86), ed. 1724, pp. 217-220), ap-
proved by W. Moyle ( Words, t ps 12)
and accepted by Gibbon c. av. to il-
lustrate the insignificance of the Chris-
tians, who thus amounted to less than
‘one twentieth of the population,seems to
me too large mther than too small. Ber-
net estimates from the 1500 widows, vir-
gins and 'thlibomeri" or afflicted people
who received relief, (Cornel. ap. Eus.
HIE. vis ay.) His reckoning is roughly
verified by the ascertained proportion,
three per cent. at Antioch, of the widows
and virgins receiving alms (3000)
whole number of Christians {ro
Chrysostom, ed. Bened. vit. pj
850, The population of Antio!
200,000, id. 11. p. 8597. But w
consider that the incessant wan
tend to make the proportion of v
and dependent children larger
capital. From the monuments a]
Lightfoot thinks we might conch
Christians to be fewer in proj
at this time. Address on M
S.P.G. (Macmillan, 873.)
+ A later opportunity will oc
illustrating the importance of the
officers lp. r4). At present w
notice that seven remained at
the fixed number of deacone
college of cardinals retains the 4
seven deacons still, Until at
century the Elect to the See of
‘was always a priest or deacon, th
by preference, See Duchesne, @
Culte Chrétien, p. 349 ". On thy
hand Constantinople in Justinian
had a hundred deacons. Routh,»
Pp. δι.
70 THE DECIAN PERSECUTION.
earlier persecution: so had her son and son-in-law, Laurentinus
and Egnatius both of them soldiers in the Roman army.
They were commemorated in the African Church as Cyprian
records’, and the African kalendar yet retains their names
on the 3rd of February. Augustine preached* in a church
dedicated to Celerina, and it was given up to the Arians
under Genseric*.
At the time when the Bishop of Rome was executed,
Celerinus was tortured in the presence it would seem of Decius
himself, A Carthaginian friend of his, Lucian, a man of humble
birth and small reading*, congratulates him in a misspelt, un-
grammatical letter’ upon having prevailed against ' the chief
Snake, the Quarter-master of Antichrist*’ Cornelius, bishop of
Rome, mentions this same Celerinus in a Greek letter to Fabius"
of Antioch as having 'borne every sort of torture and mightily
overcome the adversary,’ and he mentions him in company
with Sidonius (a Punic namc) and others with whom the
former allusion* in Cyprian also connects him. What these
tortures were we learn from a quite different source’. He was
liberated from prison in the course of the year A.D. 250, and
about December conveyed letters from Moyses to Cyprian”,
* who by this time, as we shall see, was in retirement. Cyprian
mentions having seen the terrible scars of his torture, and
witnessed the broken health which had resulted from nineteen
days in the stocks under irons almost without food or water.
He speaks of him as the earliest of the Roman sufferers in
this persecution, ‘the first at the conflict of our time, ‘the
standard-bearer in front of Christ's soldiers.’ His history and.
that of his family, as well as his personal character, which
p. xlvii, on the vulgar tongue.
? Morelli, vol. m. p. 6g. Victor
Vit. x. 9 (3).
4 Epson
* Jt should be rend in Harrel's
‘dition with the remarks in his preface
Ap 75
AD. 350.
€
72 THE DECIAN PERSECUTION,
devoted themselves to the sufferers whom now they en
and especially to the relief of their compatriots, the refu
who, driven from Carthage by the edict, found like «
foreigners their obscurest hiding-place among the crow
Rome, These they met upon their landing at Portus*
had no less than sixty-five of them under their care at
time. Celerinus pleaded for their restoration ; and their
was heard by the Roman presbytery* But their readmi:
was postponed until the election of a new bishop.
temporary adhesion of Celerinus and his friends to Novi
at that election will be noticed in its place.
It was close on Easter A.D. 250 when his sisters yielde
that the ‘Day of Joy’ and its whole season were spent by
in sackcloth and ashes and tears, At last in utter agon
Candida’s ‘Death to Christ,’ he wrote an affecting bu
judged appeal to Lucian at Carthage’, He prevailed οἱ
suffering confessors there to interpose their unmeas
popularity in subversion of the judgment of the constit
authorities of the Church.
A fatal system thus simply originated, which pres:
began to threaten the whole organization of the Church.
Of Gemuineness in Nomenclature,
We must pause upon certain exceptions to the genuinem
the correspondence in which the above account is extant. Wy
first, however, ask whether it is possible that a tale such a
could be sown in such minute fragments over such a numb
epistles as a glance at the footnotes exhibits unless that tale
Honor, i. Labbe, vol. vi. € 1419 and — Cir, anno iv. p. so, for inte
Vit, Hadriani i. Labbe, vol. VL. cc. illustrations of the necessity for
05 and 414), speaks of S. Adrian and provision at Portus: particular
of SS. Cowmas and Damian as being erection by the senator Pammi
‘in Tribus Fatis this can only mean, S, Jerome's friend, of a hostelry
as Bunsen saw, that the lower end — for Peregrini.
lor Porth side) of the Forum came to — 3 Prepositi, Zp, νι. 3:
be 20 called. 9 Eje an
1 See Rossi, Bolletino di Avrhonl.
THE DECIAN PERSECUTION.
of Bassianus seemingly as bringing letters and, according to usage!,
a Cleric.
Mr S. thinks it suspicious that the “most common names in
Victor, Donatus, Donata, Januaria. He should have added Dativa-
Names expressive of ‘God’s Gift are as Phomnician as they are
Hebrew. But also Getulicus, Saturninus, Uranius point to the
and to the Punic worship which they represent. How
should ‘a Gaulish Bishop in the sth century, a stranger to Africa,
in the days of Casarian, Bishop of Arles; forge with such micety
85 to evolve so appropriate a list of names? But again the names are
not all common. Is Sfesina a familiar name to Mr S.? He will
mot find it in all the thousands of inscriptions in Muratori and
Gruter. Yet it does occur just where it should if these letters
are genuine. It is the name of a martyr in the Africa Kalendar*.
[And since this was written it has appeared in several African
inscriptions®.)
On Etecusa and Numeria.
Etecusa the Carthaginian obtained exemption from sacrificing at
Rome by payment. Her brother Celerinus entreats that the first
martyrs selected for death among the prisoners at Carthage may
‘istis sororibus nostris Vemerie et Candida tale peccatum. remit
‘tant. Nam hanc ipsam £vecusm semper appellavi...guia pro
‘dona mwmeravit ne sacrificaret’ (Ef. 21. 3) As translated by
Dr Wallis ‘our sisters Numeria and Candida, for this latter I
have always called Etecusa...because she gave gifts, the passage Is,
as he observes, ‘altogether unintelligible’ Hence the conjectures
εἰ aécusam (ἀεκοῦσαν), ἀτυχοῦσαν (Dodwell, Diss. ad Eg. 21), and
Hartel’s exeusafaw. No various reading except Éf/eruram and ef
recusam.
Let us observe however that merit is not a real praenomen
(Varro, Ling. Lat. ix. 55) ; that the whole letter fails in taste and in
grammar ; that Anz ipsane may perfectly well be predicative; and
that Aane need not refer to the last named, who in this Lain
would more commonly be Zja». Hence we may understand that
Numeria is the sobriquet which Celerinus says he has affixed to
+See Epp. 7 8, 9 35 36, 44 * CLL. vin, 1. Sperina 2183. 4443.
48. Ke. 4987. 4935- 8804. Spertinia sige. Tie
Jap. Moreelli, vol. 1t. p. 369 *M. — ferra 140, all Numidian.
Jun. vii, Id... Spisine."
76
town five commissioners! were associated with the
The tortures were not used until the arrival of the
in April He found the severities so much abated that
of the exiles had returned, but after presiding
tribunal in the capital’, he made a tour of the
with his twelve dreaded fasces', exercising such
some conspicuous confessors yielded, while others died
his engines®,
While the persecution of Diocletian was based
determination that, cost what
be extirpated, that of Decius at first assumed that it
be dissipated by a mingling
1 Primores, Xp. 43. 3. *Versecutio
est bec alia, et alia est temptatio, et
quinque isti presbyteri nihil aliud sant
quam quinque primores illi qui dieto
sper magistratibus faerant eopulati, ut
fidem nostram subruercnt, ut gracilia
fruiram corda ad leules laqueos pre-
varicatione veritatis averterent. eadem
mune ratio, eadem rursus eversio per
quinque presbyteros Felicissimo copula-
tor ad ruinam salutis inducitur, te.’
That is, "The five presbyters are as
ruinous to the Chureh as ever the five
magnates were.’ ΤῸ interpret it of
visions, or of the presbyters actually
torturing martyrs, ie absurd indeed. Tt
is only just ax obscure as a Cyprian,
wanting to say so strong a thing, would.
feel bound to make it.
We may compare &. ga. a where he
says of Novatus ‘gud in ipsa persecu-
lone..slia quiedam persecutio nostri
foit.
* See note on xlii Epistles, £j. rt
infr. pp. τοῦ sqq- Morelli, vol. 1t. p. ra
and p. ros, calls him FORTUNATIANUS,
The Greek Mensea (April. Venet. 1614)
Ap. 10 describe an African martyr
Terentius as suffering under Fortunati-
anus ax ἤγεμών, ia. * Proves’ rightly
so rendered [n Holl, Acta SS. p. δύο.
THE DECIAN PERSECUTION,
it might, Christianity
of ferocity with fc
T. F. Zinus’ Latin version of
and 482) has 'prases" Ap.
Oct. 38. The Menologium
Basil has ἡγεμών (Migne,
117, 6. 396). The extant Lai
comes from Greek versions of 1
ginal Latin, Terentius relics
been preserved at Constantinople
"These references to the sou
Morceli's knowledge I owe
research and kindness of the Rev
Hole.
‘But I must conclude from the
Terentius belonged to Numidia
Mauretania under the jurisdie
a preser or prafectus (ἡγεμών) = |
to Africa Proper under its Proce
ἀνθύπατον; and that hence the ¢
are not sufficient for placing F
tianus on the Roll of the Procon
39 Bp. το. 4.
* Bp. 37. 2. The procon
Africa and Asia bore these i»
others but six.
3 Eg, sp a E 46. te
78 THE DECIAN PERSECUTION.
by fire, The wife was actually burnt alive, and he was left
for dead, a shower of stones having been hurled upon him at
the stake. His daughter found him breathing still; he was
revived, and afterwards enrolled in the presbyterate of the
capital.
Many were after double torture dismissed, some into
banishment!, some to bear the brand for life, as a second
* scal in their forcheads*,’ some to resume former occupations,
beggared of all they possessed. Some quailed and fell, who
on second thoughts returned to avow their faith, forfeit their
all, and undergo their torture’, Bona* was dragged by her
husband to the altar, there to justify her reappearance from
abroad; but exclaiming * The act is not mine but yours’ as
the incense fell from her hand, she was exiled again. No
martyrs were more honoured than Castus and ZEmilius, who
Msyss for such recantation were burnt to death”,
^5 The devouring passion for martyrdom was still in the
future, yet already survivors envied ‘The Crowned,’ The
fervid temperament of Africa was aflame. Rhetoric apostro-
c Happy Prison! Gloom more brilliant than
ch rhetoric seems colder to
called every. such death. a
Confession"
which bathed it. ‘He that
for peace and are good and
their day. ‘This was
ell, vol. ταν p. 368.
Ep
* De Lapeis v3, νος Augustine's ser-
8ο INCENSERS AND SACRIFICERS.
fled, some lapsed*; there remained in the city scarce eno
to carry on the daily duty’. Many provincial bishops fled to
Rome*. One at least, Repostus of Tuburnuc, carried the main
part of his flock back to paganism*, Em
Even in Rome there were fears at one moment lest ‘the
‘brotherhood should be completely rooted out by this head--
“long return to idolatry*! Although it may or may not be a
literal statement that the lapsed at Carthage were ‘the majority |
of the flock’; yet their Bishop may well have felt ‘like one
sitting amid the ruins of his house.’ 4 |
Thus were being formed the vast classes of ‘the Incensers’ -
and ‘the Sacrificers* whose self-excision from the body of J
Christ was palpable, The act of the latter class was held the
more odious whether from the fuller ceremonial, or from the
material pollution ascribed to the victim's flesh. Yet greater - |
perplexity resulted from the conduct of others who, although —
not stronger to confess their faith, were less bold to abjure it. |
and the number of inferior officials employed in a service which —
attempted to deal with individual beliefs, opened a door to
any evasions which friendship, favour, or cupidity could devise.
As in the days of Trajan, the approved form of profession was
still to take part in sacrifice, but it was possible also to tender
allegiance in writing* The name of one who ‘professed’ in this
\ Eh 34. 4.
? Ep. 40.
9 Ep. 59.
tlt 80. Bi
? Ep $9. ro. Tuburncwasa small
miles south of the Gulf of ' Tunis, or 22
from Carthage. Tissot 1. 780 (by ine
Advertence?) makes this see one of
“emplacement inconnu," but in pl. viii.
marks the place, which is no doubt the
see. In Numidia war a Θουβούρνικα,
κολωνία (Ptol.), an oppidtum civium Δ»
manorum (Flin.), (Corp, Inscrr. Latt.
vim 1) p. 181), G. Wilmanns assigns
‘the bishops *Tubamicenses' of A.D. 411
And 646 to the latter, Morcelli, vol. ts
P» 335) gives them to the former One
‘would naturally place Cyprian’s Re
postus nearer to him. No trace remains
RE to Hartel's Sus
? Tharifcai, Βακεϊῆκαι!,
* See below the note on the Lrmkrtr.
82 THE LIBELLATICS.
magistrate had satisfied himself of the sound paganism of
the recipient. ἡ
"The unworthiness of these transactions must not mislead
us into conceiving that Christian truth had little hold upon
those who were concerned in them’ ‘ Parliamentary certi-
ficates’ of conformity were in our strictest age given and
received by the strictest Puritans and churchmen without any
pretext of fact. Intense devotion to formal truth has to the
southern and eastern temperament seemed often not incon-
sistent with insensibility to fine veracity. To detect that
lurking source of so much false doctrine and false practice
was a part of Cypri; moral office, and he speaks of the
tears of sorrow and surprisc with which many first recognised
the gravity of the fault. Even Peter of Alexandria, in the
midst of similar displeasure with the Lapsed under Dio-
cletian, cannot for bear, before he passes on to place the sin
lance at its aspect as a mockery of
his flock * ‘clever, designing children
that conviction was
o naturally, that
3 Ep 20.1.
? Tillemont (vol. 11%, p. 703) alone been
perceived there might Le /av ways. their names. P4.
*Feutestre que Von faisait et l'un et — Fell, Ap. go) that the libelli were deelara-
THE RETIREMENT OF CVPRIAN.
present in person (cam fierent). They bad put in a dege/ appearance
C frgsemtiam suam... fecissent) by commissioning a proxy to register
their names on the magistrates! list of conformity (au sic scriberentur
mandando), Novatian argues that 4s one who orders a crime is
responsible for it, so one who sanctions (consensu) the reading in
public (publice legitur) of an untrue statement about himself is
liable to be proceeded against as if it were true,
1L The other kind of éidellws which emanated not from the
renegade but from the magistrate is described with equal precision.
In the letter to Antonian (Ef. ἐς. 14) Cyprian says same af the
Libellatici had received (accepts) such a libellus. An opportunity
for obtaining one had presented itself unsought (occasio Whelit
eblate,..ostensa), and they had in person or by deputy (mamdets)
gone tow magistrate, informed him that they were Christians and paid
a sum to be exempted from sacrificing. But as no magistrate could
issue an order simply staying the execution of an edict, his certificate
must have contained a statement of the satisfactory paganism of the
holder. This is why Cyprian tries to awaken their
while they themselves were disposed to plead that they had avowed
cum ligion and that the form of the document was the magistrate's
Agi, in the Ad -Forfunatww c. τὶ Christians are urged if a.
libellus is offered them (Zide/Ii. Seah occasione) not to esabrace
‘the gift (decipiontinm
who refused the f
agis facn
i was away from
f the month of
86 WORK OF RETIREMENT.
useful than his energies, he remained, against all solicitations,
to die among his people. And gladly now would he have
braved dangcr in the activity of the presbyterate 'if the
conditions of his place and degree had permitted’) But his
presence in Carthage would have attracted danger upon
others*; would have provoked riots in the aroused state of
heathen feeling’, — Tertullus*, the devotee of prisoners and
martyrs, was himself the prime mover? and most strenuous
advocate of the concealment of Cyprian, Yet such a charm
invests even the most rash exposure of life, that there possibly
will never be wanting suggestions that the first duty of
Cyprian's life was to throw it away. Leaving fanaticism
however to its doubts, and scepticism to its sneers on this
particular, we pass to the use he made of that life. His pre-
eminent work sprang into light before him. Instantly we
find him blending a life of devotion and eucharist® with
intensest and widest activity. We find him not only swaying
and sustaining the Church of Carthage; he forms and guides
the policy of the ing a singular aggression of
the Roman clergy, he sug; Rome the measures of the
Church. The faith and pol f the Church are menaced
simultaneously by re
88 ROMAN INTERFERENCE.
have been less wounding than the latter, C
however with fervour to the eulogy on Fabian, b
to them their other letter with a dignified hope that it r
prove to be a forgery, since it lacks both authenti
and even the paper it was written on’. It is indeed a sing
document We might have wished to share Cyprian's.
picion, did not a later letter of his shew that his delicate —
doubt was but a criticism of the missive* It is, when printed
according to the genuine text, a remarkable illustration of -
what has been often pointed out, the deficiency of the Church
of Rome at that period in literary cultivation. The inelegance.
of its style and the incorrectness of its constructions and
forms of words place it by the side of the four other epistles*
which emanate from less cultivated persons, and distinguish
these from all the rest of the correspondence. No further
caustic criticism was provoked. He had awakened them to
the sense of his position and their own. Their answer gave
him full assurance of support, and with a vigorous letter
from the Roman to the Carthaginian Confessors* came op-
portunely and helpfully. Their third Epistle was from the
strong, clear, pedantically clear, pen of Novatian' and was
sent after a consultation with ‘ Bishops Present’ as they were
called—neighbouring bishops and bishops then in Rome on
Ὁ Bp Qe
In Kf. 20. 3 he calls it plainly
‘vestra scripte and quotes a passage
from it with a slight improvement in
the wording. Fechtrup (p. d poster, t
ously thinks he had made and
detected the mistake.
? Epp. si—á4. The errors are not
due to the inaccuracy but to the cor-
rectuess of the text, which elsewhere
exhibits no such phenomena. See Har |
gladly learn what honour was
was forged in her interest.
^ These two crossed his Kf. ao, see
former are given in Ep. jo. 3, and it
ly circulated with two of
tel's Preface, p. xlviii Does shart
ipse in Bp. 9. 2 further indicate the
Poverty of the serie? One would -
30. §) is leo lost (sce p. 93)
* Ep. jo; compare Zp. 58, 8. On
Novatian's style see p. 122 and note.
9o THE MARTYRS,
faithful to the Church, they were saving its existence’, and at
the same time demonstrating that the attractions and the
terrors of heathenism were not powerful enough to hold the
world. Gratitude to them knew no bounds. Ministers to
their wants flocked to the prisons* Men prayed all night
upon the earth that they might themselves be captured so
as to attend on those? who had been tortured. * The Offering’
was made regularly in theircells. From his retirement Cyprian
has to recommend less demonstrative sympathy*, and to
enjoin that only one presbyter with one deacon should per-
form that service, and that these should so succeed one
another as not to cause the constant attendance of any to
be remarked. Every death among them was communicated
to him that he might *celebrate the oblations and sacrifices"
of commemoration, and was calendared for future observance’,
At Rome the martyred Fabian himself had made the
compilation of such registers a duty of the subdeacons with
their clerks. A few years later began under Gregory
Thaumaturgus the substitution for pagan feasts of wakes
over the martyred remains which he conveyed to various
localities’,
"Thus everywhere the vencration for the martyrs rose in
proportion to the magnitude of the interests at stake. Cyprian
Δ Ep. gp. 4 *..nutantem multorum — Opt, 1, 16.
fidem martyrit vestri veritate solidastis."
3 2}. 5. «.
? The only intelligible sense 1 ean
give to Zip. at. 3.
* Hefele suggests that some of the
calumnies against Ceecilian arose from.
πὲς re similar prudence. Af. des
Concites (eds Delarc) vol. 1. p. 1g.
* Κρ. τα. s. From the recitation of
their names in the list or canon arose
‘the term *canonize Caciliam, 4D.
312, rebukes Luci
relic of a martyr,
such ei
tion (as has been already observed) of.
the title Martyr being added, though
mot much later, to the epigraph of
Fabian, about whose martyrdom there
can be no question; see pp. 6s, 66 and
ilicis. Catalogue (Lip-
" «it, p. 273) Cf. Pearson,
Minor Theolag: Works, v0l. tI. pp. 384
an
E
Mor
Nya. Opf- t. ttl. De 574, 0
92 RECOURSE TO THEIR MEDIATION. —
which had at all times been unfriendly to him attributed to -
them such spiritual supremacy on earth as threatened to
disorganize the whole fabric of the Church,
Among the Lapsed there had at once set in a violent -
revulsion, a passionate desire to recover or to reassert their —
place in the forsaken Church. Some reappeared at the tri- I
bunals, and received sentence of exile'; some, like Castus -
and Aimilius, of torture and death; some, like the sisters of -
Celerinus, dedicated themselves to the service of the con-
fessors*; others entered unmurmuringly on penance of inde- ὦ
finite duration. Unhappily most preferred to rely on ἃ
vicarious and imputed merit. At first a letter from a * martyr"
to a bishop prayed only that the case of a fallen friend might
after the restoration of peace be examined into; a due period
of penitence and the imposition of hands being understood
to be at least as necessary as after other open falls. Some,
like the torn and tortured Saturninus, forebore even this peti-
tion. Mappalicus in dying requested it only for his sister and
mother*.
But the factious presbyters, who in the simplicity and.
devotion of these men saw so promising a weapon against
the absent bishop, ventured now to anticipate not such enquiry —
only, but even the death of the martyr which alone could -
have given validity to his appeal’, Upon the strength of —
papers signed by still living confessors they ‘offered the
names*' of lapsed persons at the Eucharist as of duly restored
penitents and gave them communion’, Then these Libels
began to be carelessly drawn: they sometimes specified only —
L'Aubespine, Observait, Keeler £ te |
B vil. (1623), reprinted in his edition of
Optatus, 1679: (Prieur's Optatus, 1626,
par)
TER eed. Ch Rp age.
94 THE MISUSE OF MEDIATION SYSTEMATIZED.
position by throwing the final responsibility on their bishop—
which is not an unfair view,
It may for a moment be worth our while to glance at
the modern ultramontane explanation of this step. ‘Their
‘imprudent charity’ says Freppel ‘had forgotten that /m-
“dulgences have for their object to supplement the insufficiency
‘of works of satisfaction, but not to replace them’ How was
it then that not only Cyprian, but his supposed directors, the
Roman presbyters, left after all the definition of an Indul-
gence so incomplete ?—No stronger refutation of ultramon-
tanism exists than its attempts to write history.
The Lapsed and the Presbyters who encouraged them
soon despised the condition that they should satisfy the
bishops*; but beyond the direct evils of the confessors’
it ich it ensured for the bishops,
wholesale both pied Discipline was vio-
lated, but oss too rev τι nd affection would
So also it ἐν imposible
with parodying the owl foras ἴα the
96 CYPRIAN’S RULES AND PRINCIPLES.
church in dealing with the anxious multitudes who besieged
her gates, So soon as the Libels appeared he wrote
despatches to the confessors at Carthage, to his clergy,
and with peculiar warmth and confidence to his laity’, to
Bishops in all directions*, to a remarkable group of Roman
confessors, and to the Roman clergy? who were still under
the leadership of the able, high-minded and austere Novatian.
This man, had he lived in some brief halcyon day when
orthodox speculation and asceticism were in the ascendant,
might have been a scholastic saint. That, in times of conflict
and in the most practical of all cities, some tinge of ambition
shot across his higher qualities, made his position false and
his memory unenviable, At present however nothing had
appeared in him but the clear and somewhat hard decisive-
ness which, giving point to his nobler characteristics, made
him regarded as the possible head of the Roman church,
when Fabian's suc t should be elected. Moyses, Maximus
and their fellow prisoners were as yet earnestly attached to
prian proposed onc
es of the Lapsed intact,
m Letters of Peace or
strongest light the opinions both of
Cyprian and of the Roman Confessoris
98 ROMAN DEDUCTIONS FROM FACTS.
not unnatural’, His assurance of the divine acceptance of
the unaneled penitent is nobly expressed*. ‘They that in
‘gentleness and lowliness and very penitence shall have per-
‘severed in good works will not be left destitute of the help
*and aid of the Lord. They too will be cared for by a divine
*healing’
On the ‘Proof? of Roman Confession which is derived
from these events.
Some theory of ‘development! applied to the principles both of
discipline and doctrine is no less essential to the progress (and even
to the construction) of ecclesiastical than of civil estates. The mis-
fortune of Rome is not only that her constructiveness has been in«
consequent and has incorporated usages subversive of the original
theory, but that she does practically repudiate schemes of *develop-
ment’ erected in her behalf, Her scholars are required to prove her
most modern inventions to be primitive, For instance—The word
Confession (exomolagesis) is still so far from bearing a technical
sense in Cyprian, that it is applied in the same page (1) to the Song
of the Three Children, (2) to the Monody of Daniel, and (3) to the
public acknowledgment of apostasy (de Laps, 28, 31), as well as (4) in
Testim. iii. 114 to Confession of sin to God. The word ‘Sacerdos’
in Cyprian invariably signifies a Bishop. But a judicious limitation
of these two terms to the sense of ‘sacramental confession’ and
‘presbyter or priest’ yields to the ultramontane mind the product
of auricular confession as now used in the church of Rome. Is it not
Exomologesis before a Sacerdos ?
A similar concatenation is made of (1) Cyprian's argument that-
*since cven ordinary penitents could be restored only through the
imposition of hands by bishop and clergy, after less offences than
apostasy, the Lapsed cannot be admitted more casily! with (2) his
requirement of exomologesis from the latter class, and (3) with examples
drawn from some tender consciences which had revealed a merely
contemplated desertion. From these passages is drawn the inference
that Cyprian ‘ demanded sacram. confession of a the less serious.
faults’ as ‘obligatory’ and ‘as extending even £o bad thoughts!
? ..cumvidereturethonor martyribus ΒΡ 18. 5,
habendus, £j. 36. 3. Cf. EA, 18. αν
100 THE POLICY NOT ROMAN
All that the Roman clergymen have to recommend in
their first coarse letter! is mere restoration of the Lapsed if
sick and penitent: to the rest they offer no prospect but that
of exhortation. Conception of the world-wide importance of
the crisis, conception of policy they have none. There is no
suggestion of investigation by the Bishops, of councils or
committees, of the assistance of the laity, of modification
of discipline in accordance with circumstances, of reservation
until quieter times, Yet these are the important lines. With-
out them the plan is featureless.
And it is Cyprian who step by step develops them all in
the three letters seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth to
the Clergy and People of Carthage. In his twentieth he
communicates his views and the action he had already taken,
to the Roman clergy. He observes that he has seen their
letter*, ‘recommending the restoration of sick penitents"
and agreed with it, ‘considering united action very im-
portant.’ This is the commonplace with which he proceeds
to develop his own far greater scheme, Less he could not
say in introducing it’. As the plainest exposition of it he
encloses to them a budget of Thirteen Letters which he had
from his retirement despatched to Carthage, containing his
successive comments and instructions upon the progress of
affairs, and he adds a connected outline of their purport. He
repeats his own three observations which had led him to
direct that, while others should be deferred till the councils
could be held, those who possessed martyrs’ Libels should,
1 £y; 8 sec above, sect. v. tena, ne actus noster, αὶ adunatus
es let consecules. cirea omnia debet, in
tary sentence how he menti
fications, introduced by himself, which enperiuus SX,
made all the difference: Af. 20. 3 * Ep. 20.2. On the Thirteen Letters
tandum putavi et cum vestra sen- — sce note at close of this section.
102 τ᾿ “(or pocuments.)
On the Thirteen Epistles of which Cyprian sent copies to the
‘Ronians.
In Epistle 20. 2 Cyprian gives précis of the contents of these his
Thirteen Letters, with some chronological notes, in somewhat of the same
way in which Pontius ( f. c. 7) gives in a few sentences a consecutive
outline of Cyprian’s Treatises. By writing out this sketch in clauses and
lines, and placing opposite to these our own abstract of certain epistles,
we shall form an opinion (1) as to whether any of the thirteen are lost,
(2) as to the order in which Cyprian himself had them arranged, and
wished them to be read. Thus—
Cvr. Zp. 20.2. Et quid egerim locuntur vobis Epistula: pro temporibus.
emisse numero Tredecim :
in quibus nec ‘clero’ consilium,
nec ‘confessoribus’ exhortatio,
nec ‘extorribus’ quando oportuit objurgatio,
ti ad deprecandam Dei misericordiam, allo-
cutio et persuasi: itra defuit.
Posteaquam vero et ‘tormenta venerunt,"
penetravit.
(OF DOCUMENTS.)
Item cum comperissem &c. the distribution of libelli,
litteras feci quibus martyres et confessores ad dominica ‘preecepta’
revocarem ;
Ttem presbyteris et diaconibus non defuit sacerdotii vigor ut *quidam
bite inds "memores, reecfoticr Lapsed o CHR RE
UM
Plebi quoque ipsi,..animum. En companions εἰ ut ecclesiastica. disciplina.
servaretur instruximus.
Postmodum vero (the having wiolewtly extorted communutou),. de.
ἐπ θερμὴν litteras feci A qui bello a πὶ
accepto’ de s;cvlo excederent *exomol facta’ et ‘manu eis in
"tia, imposita cum pace’ sibi ‘a martyribus" promissa ‘ad
inum" remitterentur.
Sed cum videretur 1. necessary fo respect Confessors, 2. quiet the Lapsed,
3. reconcile sick peuitents, he had ordered the libelli to be complied
with in this fast case, as affecting the three points: ail other cares to
be reserved for a Council when Peace returns,
106 DIOCESAN DISQUIETUDES.
IX.
Diocesan Disquictudes.
Throughout the earlier part of Cyprian's correspondence
is perceptible a reliance upon his laity, a dissatisfaction with
his clergy. These omit to answer his letters’: Some act
independently of his aims. Some compromise themselves by
entire deference to the injunctions of the Confessors* or
adopt them as the strongest barrier against superior authority,
In one letter* he throws himself on the Plebes with an almost
impassioned appeal. ‘My presbyters and deacons should
‘have warned them. I know the quictude, the shrinking-
“ness of my people, How watchful would they have been
“had not certain presbyters in quest of popularity deceived
‘them! Do you then yourselves take the guidance of them,
“one by one. By your own counsel and moderation refrain
‘the spirits of the lapsed,’
When he has at length obtained the entire concurrence
of the Roman clergy, Novatian included*, of their confessors",
and of the whole episcopate African and Italian’, he assumes
a stronger tone with his own clergy’, and requires them to
circulate the whole correspondence of which he forwards
them copies. This was done’, The affair seemed settled
for the present. Ali the Lapsed except death-stricken persons,
however armed with Martyrs’ papers, even Clergy penitently
ready to return to their charge’, were reserved for the de-
cision of the organic authority—the united Episcopate.
Lastly,in accordance with the severer tone already assumed
2 Ep 18. αν ? Ep. 32.
2 Ep ape * Ep. 35. 5
P Bp ip ἂν δ. * Bp. 34. 4. They were to cease to
+ Ep. 30. draw their monthly dividends, though
? Bp. gr ‘without prejudice,’ until they could be
“ Epp. τοὶ 26; 43-35 88. 5: 308 heard,
; clergy acting in concert with some bishops who
fad been visiting Carthage and were in Cyprian's confidence,
“eases already provided for".
‘By the November of the year 250 the persecution was Nov,
‘wlixing at Carthage. The Goths had crossed the Don, ^*^
‘Deelus was leaving Rome for his last campaign. It was
c4 at for Cyprian to return, He therefore
five representatives? for certain important fune-
h he sketched out and for which he supplied the
in Carthage and the neighbouring districts. These ?Jan,
bishops, Caldonius, Herculanus and Victor, with two ^?^ *5*
, Numidicus whom, after his already mentioned
from a horrible martyrdom, Cyprian placed
‘clergy of the capital, and lastly Rogatian, the
long since charged with the dispersion of
The letter of Caldonius, who acted with
tes by its incorrectness a scanty and provincial
This commission had enough to do, under social
which seemed to allow penury no upward road,
alms, in helpfully subsidising confessors whose
‘confiscated so as to enable them to resume
in selecting persons capable of being employed in
he church*, in maintaining communications with
of ad demm transmittite....” £g. 41. 2.
"There is no sign of their removal being
due to the influence of Felicisimus,
face, pealviil. He should in consistency
have kept those readings of T and ΤῊ.
ΟΣ
108 DECLARATION OF PARTIES. |
the provincial bishops, and above all im endeavouring to
persuade to patience the restless masses of the Lapsed\ — —
Superstition was in some quarters beginning to add terror
to the anxiety for restoration. Stricken consciences had in
many instances induced physical and mental prostration—even
death* One person had become dumb in the moment of
denial and so remained. Another had died in the public
baths, gnawing the tongue which had tasted the idol sacrifice,
On the other hand still more terrible signs indicated the
profanity of presumptuous return. An infant girl had rejected
the chalice with wailing and convulsions, This occurred in
Cyprian’s own presence, while celebrating during his retire-
ment. It was found that the nurse had taken the child
before the magistrates and made it taste the idolatrous wine.
A woman who clandestinely presented herself at the liturgy,
died in the act of communicating. One who had as usual re-
served the sacred Bread at home, was, on opening its receptacle
after her lapse, scared by an outburst of flame, A man found
it changed to ashes in his very hands.
x
Declaration of Parties. Novatus and Felicissimus,
The latter class of stories indicates, what was the fact,
that the opinion destined to create and to perpetuate real
division was already active. Evidently the question which te
some was presenting itself was not when, or upon what terms,
the Lapsed should be readmitted, but whether it was possible
for the church to remit such guilt. Although Cyprian employs
these incidents in favour of delay, they are plainly no ema-
nation from the party of moderation. Yet he probably
apprehended at this moment little peril from the sentiment
Drs ? De Lofsis, 14, 38, 96.
110 DECLARATION OF PARTIES.
in unity with the Bishop; and still more characteristically
that their ‘roll of the Lapsed could scarcely be “The Church,”
since GOD was not the GOD of the dead but of the living.’
More welcome letters* reached him at the same moment,
There were many of the Lapsed who had ever since given
themselves devotedly to good works in silence. These now
assured him that they would never plead their Libels ; that
they were living in thankful penance; biding their time for
restoration to Peace on his return, They added with that
gentle fervour which marked true African Christianity that
* Peace would be more swect to them if restored in his own
‘presence’ ‘How I hail them,’ says Cyprian, ‘the Lord is
‘my witness; He has vouchsafed to show what servants like
* these deserve from His goodness,’
Then in that methodic way which gave point to all his
enthusiasm he requests from cach side a list of their signatures,
sends to the clergy of Carthage explicit instructions, and to
the clergy of Rome, by a subdeacon Fortunatus*, copies of all
the papers’, à
Foremost of the presbyters stood the famous and restless’
? Both letters are deseribed in AP. 33. — means ‘demand for them.’ To conceive
^ Epf. 33. 34 38 The Roman
clergy acknowledging these Ef. 36, 3,
say there must be some ‘qui illos
armimt.,.et in perversum énsirwentes...
exitions deposcant illis properatie com-
municationis venena, and that not ‘sine
XS quorundam" would all have
remark that arment with snsiruentes
means provide and furnish, and has no
relation to facert which is simply com-
munion, and contains no indication of
‘weitere auftindische Bewegungen,"
Quorundam refers to the persons of
whom Cyprian had told them, not to his
clergy at large. Again ‘deposcant ills?
that εὐδὲ has dropped out before sir iy
monstrous in Latinity, and to translate
it ‘claim for themselves liberty to gi
“λον communion prematurely,' equally
so. So, however, O. Ritschl's laboured
pages, 55, 82.
* Seep. 47. Rerum novarum.
cupidus! 29. sx. 2. That the leader
Novatus wns one of the Five appear
from the whole tenor of the history o
the faction more than from particular
passages. Compare however Eg. 14. 4
Ef. 59. 9 and what is said of the Five
presbyters acting with Felicissimus, 2p
43-3, and of Novatus acting with him.
Ep. sh % That the Five are the origina.
opponents of Cyprian is shewn by the
expression ‘olim secundum vestra suf
fragia” in Hf. 43. δι and these passage
112 DECLARATION OF PARTIES. |
This man, asa Presbyter, had some charge in an im]
region or ward in the city, called Mons, or the Hill
Bozra or Byrsa itself rising some two hundred feet abc
rest of the town, with the main streets leading up it, a
principal buildings on its plateau, may well have
distinctions, local and social, like the still remembered *
Hill’ and ‘Below Hill' of such cities as Lincoln; |
least no other district can well have occupied that dis!
namc' In managing its church affairs he associate
himself as Deacon an energetic and determined person.
+ This I venture to think must be the’ tine), and at Rome the osa
simple meaning of */m Afemte Ep. 4t. called Montenses. See Optat
1304 4. Ineach place Hartel reads i — c. iv. and the passages there ¢
morte and so Ritschl, &e. Bot in the E. Dupin (Paris, 1702, p. 32).
latter clause there is no doubt as tothe — Chron. 356} adv. Luojf. ad É
reading, 7 baving mowleand Z montem; Bp, (165) 53, De Unit. Eo
in the former morte 7) wm mortem Z Herestbus 6g. Cod. Theod. 1,
are natural corrections of what seemed — s, xlii (A.D. 498). There is
obscure; but not so monte for morte, — of any sect but the i
the sense of which would be obvious; — called, and they from a Mons,
whilst inemo ut tecum, v, pmo vitw, , — in a grotto of which they had)
indicate both the puzzle of the scribes ehurch. In the 8th canon of
and that they had monte before them. — held at Rome A.D. 386 the t
See also p. 113, note 4. Keference to thus conjoined and disti
Monte in Numidia ts absurd. Mos — venientes a. Novatianis vel
heim and others thought that this "ln per manus impositionem.
Monte! travelled with Novatus to ἀκ oo quof rebaptieant' (
Rome, and gave the Novatianists the papoe, Labbe, t 1t. €. 1228).
name Montenses there, Hefele (Neew- — Perhaps L may attempt
tianisches Schisma in Wetzer w. Welt?’s this canon, since the i
Kirchenlexiken, and Hd. Conciles, ed, mean (as has been seen) the
Delare, L. vin. $ 10$) says that they the fact. ‘They are thus
were wo called (and also AMommiwe, by Innocent 1. in his letter to
which is an invention) from confusion of Rouen (Innoc. 1, Bp. 3-
with the Montanists, But all this arises — v. HI, c« 9), “printer 05, sf
from a misinterpretation of Epiphanius, nobis ad illos transeuntes
His words are (after he has already
enumerated the Montanists in his list)
(Ancoratus 13) KaBapol, οἱ καὶ Nava-
ταῖοι, οἱ καὶ Μοντήσιοι, ὧν ἐν 'Ῥώμῃ
καλοῦνται, Theve ' Puritans” might be
of course either Novatianist or Donatist
(differenced by origin only, not doc-
114 DECLARATION OF PARTIES.
fautors of the conspiracy. This letter accordingly comes down
to us followed by Caldonius'list. It gives a glimpse of the
lower social classes which entered with living interest into
Christianity and its debates,—classes without which the
Church's work is not half done, With the two Deacons are
named a small manufacturer, a seamstress, a woman who had
been tortured, and two refugees, The Five Presbyters are not
mentioned’,
‘The prominence of a Deacon at this period need cause no
surprise. Although the time had not yet come when at
Rome those officers so far surpassed the presbyters in emolu-
ment and dignity, that they looked upon promotion as an
injury, or when at Carthage they were described as in ‘the
third Priesthood’,' and needed new canons to remind them
of their subordination to the presbyterate as well as to the
episcopate, and even of their duty of rendering assistance in the
Eucharist’, yet already their control of funds, their knowledge
1 Bp. ga, dn Zp 41. + Cyprian formity with his instructions. See
writes "bas litteras meas...Carthaginem
ad elerum transmittite addifis nom inibus
vorum quicunque se Feliciwimo junxe-
rmt" Accordingly Ap. 43 is simply
ss follows. ‘Caldonius cum Herenlano
«t Victore Collegis item Rogatiano cam
Numidico Presbyteris. Abii
communicatione: Felicissimus
eodum, tm Reposium de extorilias
εἴ Irenem Ratllorum et Paulam sarclaa-
tricem quod ex adnotatione men scire
debuisti. item abstinuimus Sophroniam
et ipsum de extorribus Soliassum budi-
narivm.” In this strange little note it
should seem superfluous to say that
adnotatio cannot mean the kind of list
by which a magistrate published the
names of absenfeer summoned to appear
for trial (wee Dirksen, Manuate, 1.0).
‘This is itself x sentence on notorious
offenders and ix itself the adnotatio, ns
appended to Cyprian's despatch in con-
debuisti ἐς epistolary and does not imply
a former communication ; compare Ep.
88 Shox factum bis litrrir ostiis cer
tissime scire debuit. Translate "Fam
bound to inform you by ἃ note appended
by myself" This Zp. 42 is not μᾶς
dressed to Cyprian himself therefore, as
usually understood, but is à transeript
of the document issued. It naturally:
ἰδ
On the obecare occupations named
τς nee αἱ end of te secon, poli
173, Baron, Ad Ann. 25, and bis ‘Veter
on the Roman Martyrology, Jun. ἃ ; see
note 3, p- 109 above.
13 (vids Casaub. in loe.].
Erech. e. 18.
‘encil, Carth ADs 398, ος. 37
τδ
bishop for themselves and procured his consecration. When
Novatus visited Rome, he threw himself into the Episcopal
election then proceeding, opposed the candidate who was
chosen, and then procured an episcopal consecration for his
own nominee’. If in any century of the Church's history
the presbyteral parentage of episcopacy was forgotten or
undiscovered, and any revival of latent presbyteral claim to
assume an episcopal function impossible, it was in the third’
But, again, it is evident from the nature of the frauds
attributed to Felicissimus that he was already a Deacon when
he joined Novatus, and it was by complicity with him that
Novatus became liable to the same accusation* of wronging
the fatherless and widows‘,
Thus at last we have before us a complete picture of the
formation of an Opposition in the third century, The
original clerical element of dissatisfaction with the popular
choice of the bishop had allied itself with discontent at the
bishop's delegating even administrative functions to others,
DECLARATION OF PARTIES. i
and with a wide-spread conviction that meritorious suffering.
in the Church's cause established some claim to a voice in her
discipline, Lenity to the Lapsed, open admission to Com-
munion was the rallying cry, and the rank and file of the
party consisted of the multitudinous claimants for restoration
with their families.
3 illic episcopum feit, Ef. $2.2. — the reading of Hartel, but the xs. ἄν,
* See Bp. Lightfoot's Dissertation on
the Christian Mintatry.
3 Epp. 41. 15 52-3
* In £p. $2.2 this action of Ni
iw parwlleled with his creation of
Bishop, which was certainly not without.
the intervention of legitimate bishops.
His offence lay in making Felicissimus
ir deacon, ‘nee permittente me nec
sciente," i.c inconsulto Cypriano. Com»
pare Ag. 34. 1 1 Gaio Didensi μόν.
der» et diacono gus. *Felicissimum
satellitem suum diaconum.. constituit" is
"Felicisimum watellitem sunm www.
diaconem constituit,’ and Q, * Pelicissl-
mum satellitem wm um. d'iacomum.
constituit * are right, and supported by
the further repetition in AM, * Felicissi-
‘mum satellitem suem seme diaconum
itum cons
Kechtmp, pp. 116, 117, and δ, 4,
P. rro, says rightly that Nonas
could not have ventured upon, mor.
Cyprian have failed explicitly to censure,
το discrediting à novelty as Orders given.
by ἃ presbyter.
118 GROWTH OF THE OPPOSITION AT ROME.
sarcinis quod. plurforwm vestinin sumant! But as Paulus, Dig. 1. 47
tit, 2, 83 (82), says * Fullo et sarcinator, qui polienda aut sarcienda vesti-
menta accipit; the grammarians’ account (though they are anxious as
to the formation of the word) is consistent with the employment being
that of a ‘seamstress,’ or ‘mender,’ the *sarcinz ' being packs of clothes
So from an old Latin-Greck Glossary in the Library of S. Germain des
Prés, Du Cange sx, cf. vol. VIL p. 442.4 1. 9, quotes sarcinatrix ἡπηγρία,
dxearpla (sic lege), rj καλλωπεστρία. lt is coupled in Dig. L 15, tit. τ, 27
(Gaius) with the employment of a *textrix' as an "artificium vulgare
So in Plast, Aulwl, Ut. 5, 41 the *sarcinatores! are named with the
“fullones, as also in Gaius Comment. 143, 162,205. In Lucil ag
Non. ii. 818 the 'sarcinator makes a patchwork quilt ‘suere centonem/
What the ‘machina’ are in Varro, af. Von. i. 276,' Homines rusticos in
vindemia incondita cantare, sarcinatrices in machinis’ is not so clear.
Anyhow the exhibition of the social class is most interesting.
XL
Growth of the Opposition at Rome. The Confessors and
Novatian,
We have already had occasion to mention a noble group
of Confessors who had b i
at the time of
and the sigh
Cyprian sent 1 | enco aragement, and pecu
XS mong them were two
451 cb ups p. 69.
120 GROWTH OF THE OPPOSITION AT ROME.
even here marks the importance attached to his y
followed them* to a confessar's grave.
With an insight lacking to the rest Moyses had
Novatian's progress toward an exclusive rigorism, |
discoverable even in his first epistle, and hardening
Cyprian softened, after that meeting-point* So uncl
like had seemed to him the ' insane arrogance?' of Nc
tone that at last he had refused to act with him, or |
to communicate with him and his uncharitable disci
this time five presbyters) in the visits which, lik
clergy, they paid to the prisoners’, Moyses may wi
* Post passionem ejus(Fabii) Moyses αὐτῷ must refer to Novatue
et Maximus presbyteri et Niestratus — Novatinn, because *The five ]
diaconus comprehensi sunt et in car- — maur de The Five Carthagin
Cerem sunt míss. Eo tempore super« — byters. Its to be observed th
venit Novatus ex Africa et separavit de the whole Epistle Novatian
ecclesia Novatianum et quosdam con- possibly through Eusebius!
fewores, postqunm Moyses in carcere *Novatus.’ Having howeve
defunctus est, qui fuit ibi m. xi d. xi. a numerical but a presbyte
(Liberian Catalogue, ap. Lipsius, ej. — Lipsius makes Moyses 'excom
eit, p. 467). Considering that Fabian — Novatsand his five. Tn thy
was martyred on so Jan, this looks as should have a Roman pref
if it meant that Moyses died on the last communicating Five Presb)
day of the yer; the precision of the never stirred from Carthag
recon s due to the necessity felt for — whom it is difficult to conceis
saving the memory of Moyses from the — had heard, Riehl, p. 68,
imputation of Novatianism. also that this would make Si
? pp. 108 sqq- tion Presbyters there, wheres,
κατιδὼν αὐτοῦ τὴν Opartryra καὶ rip — hear of Five. But then farth
ἀπόνοιαν, Eus. /f. δ. viv 43, is so, Moyses is not sald to
* ἀκοινώνητον ἐποίησεν Cornelius, Ej. nounced Novatian himself a
ap. Eus. //. E., Le, where see Valois. only Novatus and his Carth
Although the word is classical in the whereas his disowning of Ni
sense of *having no dealings with,’ yet — the very point which Cornelit
the bond and usages of communion can — to impress on Fabius.
hamlly fail to have affected already a The number Five reapper
term which soon was becomingthe fixed larly in the History. Cypr
word for ‘excommunicated,’ especially — recwmants are Five Presbyters
since the sentence proceeds σὺν τοῖς — 1.3. The heretic Privatus of
πέντε πρεσβυτέροις volt ἅμα αὐτῷ ἀπο. had Five presbyter adherents
σχίσασιν ἑαννοὺν τῆν ἐκκλησίαν. to, Five peesbyters attended
In this same clause Lipsius (of. ci. — at the reconciliation of Maxi
p.303) untowardly conceived that this — 49. s. Εἶνε bishops consec
and habits furnished. aires wide τ τὴ not have
disallowed from others. To forsake the presbyter:
have been a step alien to his rigidly eccles
while at the same time there is no reason to question
the fact or the sincerity of his abjuration of episcopal
tion’. The unsparing author of the contemporary p
‘To Novatian’ bears witness to his faithfulness as a p
‘how he had wept for the faults of others as his own,
‘had borne their burdens, and dwells on ‘the strength o
heavenly addresses" to the faint-hearted*.
We may judge for ourselves that his eloquence was.
Ϊ vulgar order. At a time when the Roman church
Ἷ πὸ Latin writer of ability, his style is pure, clear, ii
not disdainful of verbal repetitions for distinctness” sake,
in his syllogisms afraid of prolonged pronominal clauses!
When he passes from explanations to reflections he has a
peculiar tone of melancholy sarcasm and latent censure which
seems to dwell even in the sound of his sentences.
He had been engaged in controversy with the Jews, an
? We need not believe with Cornelius.
(Euseb, doc. cif.) that bis caths on this
subject were φοβεροί (xm δὲ ὅρκων,
φοβερῶν τινων...), but Neander’s ques-
tioning (op. «it. vol. 1. pp» 335 6) that.
Novatian protested against the imputa-
tion is not creditable 10 his criticism.
Novatian was a student, and a pietist and
‘severe man, and in delicate health. He
did not wish to be dragged from retire-
ment until the development of his views
forced it on him.
? Ad Novatianum, ch. 13. in the
appendices to Cyprian, On the Author-
ship of this Treatise sce Appendix,
LE
3 From this tone (see especially the
insinvation of 36. 3) and from the
pronominal peculiarities I cannot hesi-
tate to axoribe to him Zp. 6 as certainly
as Zp. go. Compare Eg. 26. 2 *
30 4 ‘Nam gut id gwod habet not
custodit in e» ex gu» imd possidet,
dum id ex quo possidet. violat, amitti
illnd quod possidebat,! and with Nova
tian’s de Trin. c. 13 *... Verbum autem.
Aoc sind est qued., ilhilominus
mundus spre post iler, &. Compar
‘gain the string of short elausex eom.
meneed with Qued i in the above pas
sage of De Trin. with Eg. 36. 1, 4
“qui si babent, δος, ἀπά ef. p. t47, 8. |
inf. (A more elaborate proof of th
authorship is worked out by De A
Harnack in @p..cit inp. rg] 6 |
124 GROWTH OF THE OPPOSITION AT ROME.
*be the banquets which sustain angels; these be the tables
* which make martyrs.
‘Christian temperance condemns both avarice and luxury?!
These vices are severely chastised, and lastly, in language
much sterner than S. Paul's*, the partaking of things offered
to idols is condemned as still in use, and apparently as being
the one way now possible in which defiled meats could be
eaten,
Thus then Novatian had well deserved the reputation, at
which the practical Cornelius levels an unthinking sneer, of ‘a
master in doctrine and a maintainer of ecclesiastical science*"
Cornelius was indeed cast in another mould, He was a
Roman of the Romans. Apart even from the other popes
with their Greek epigraphs, he was buried under a Latin
inscription among the noble Cornelii* He had risen quiet and
τς, 6. On one singular revel iltian, — ascribed to Cyprian.
here made see p. 290, n. 4- "
.sumentem disinonie nutrit non
with the object of helping on the
Macedonian views of the Holy Spirit.
wever it is orthodox, and inexact
as prior to definition.
See inf. Ch. vit. x.
bellian Heresy” (c. 12 sqq) be some
years later in date. Jerome (de Virr,
Wt. ze) calls i αὶ "quisi-epitome" from surname Castinus given in the Liter
126 GROWTH OF THE OPPOSITION AT ROME.
urged by a new and strange partisan, placed themselves on
the side of Noyatian’.
ALD. 381, Early in the year 251 they were liberated from prison
aay and the election of a bishop was contemplated.
eer For the security of Decius was threatened. Before the
uno commencement of the new year Priscus* had assumed in
Dew Macedonia the title of Augustus, and allied his legions with
τἀ δ Cniva and bis Goths. Decius left Rome for the scene of
action. Scarcely was he gone when Julius Valens was pro-
claimed Emperor} behind him, and followed him as far as
Ll {anno Ulyria’, There was a sudden absence from the city of all
Nl the principal military officers. Valens soon fell But the
δ τον or fu of commanders was the Rest of the Church. And though
d ^D- threats ed, and expectations of resumed persecution
+Feb. or prevailed”, the interval was seized‘ for an election.
a compelled to accept the result’, was by no less than sixteen
bishops* ordained to the See of Rome,
In that Imperial world horror followed horror and ‘blood
touched blood” so fast that the sense of awe only stirred
uneasily from time to time and was still again. But a great
eee was silently. nto over its vast area, for whom Provi-
: ealities, and whose sense
uffering for Him, The
year 251 was on the 23rd of March, and Cyprian, though
unable to keep the Paschal solemnity in his own church,
as was the wont of the African bishops', returned very shortly
afterwards to Carthage, after fourteen months of absence’.
It was some expected move" on the part of ‘the faction’
which postponed his return, or the fear of a demonstration
which might rekindle persecution. Nothing unusual seems
to have occurred. It was recognised that the execution
of the edict was suspended‘, work was instantly resumed
with utmost vigour, and the bishops of the province, about
the first week of April, began joyfully to muster in the
GROWTH OF THE OPPOSITION AT ROME.
prid,
* metropolis,
wretchedly by copying out the odd
number of months as if they were the
years. Thus, from the statements that
Comelius sate ‘a. IT. m. IH. d. X.
sion of the First Council, and of several
journeys for Novatus to and from Romes
That date rests however on the mere
application of the duration of Cornelius?
episcopate (two years three months and
ten days) to the 14th of September,
which Jerome gives as the historical
date of his execution at Rome. Corne-
Stephanus 8, ΠῚ, m. IL, d. XXI, Xystus
3. Dom, Xt d. VL he derives his
statements that they sate respectively
‘three years, two years, and eleven yoars
‘He has Lucius more correct.
Δ Ep 56. 3.
* Biennium in the loose, over
wrapping time-reckoning of a Roman:
Ep.
7
lias wax however not put to death, and
that day is the real anniversary of the
ls was celebrated at Rome on secount
of their he coy
130 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE,
‘and invectives" He resolved not to communicate the mass of
bitter and offensive charges in writing* against Cornelius
to an audience of partially informed, provincially-educated
persons, far from the scene of action, now gathered for deli-
beration in files about the Altar*, and surrounded by the
excitable laity of the city. Whether even on these forcible
motives he should have withheld them is a question; con-
sidering that these councils were the very types of returning
freedom, both individually and corporately, We recognise in
his act the benevolent despot singularly combined with the
scrupulous debater, He took however the politic step of
3.02 quae ex diverso in librum mis
sum congesta fuerant, Ef, 45. 2, nothing
wonderful. Not as Rettberg (p. 125].
‘ein ganzes Buch angefillt.”
5. Fratribus (i, sacerdotibus) et plebi,
Bp. 45. 1 ...longe positos et trans mare
constituos, 4$. 3. Hartel confuses this
the assembly forbade him to produce
the railing accusation "considerantes
pariter et ponderantes quod in tanto
fentrom religiosoque conventu considen-
tibus Dei sacerdotibus | Med pons
be read or listened to
Further on he says,
debere ostendimus, sí quando talia
quorundam calumpiosa temeritate con-
menm indem nos non patimur";
uty if,
changes destroy the meaning; but aa
really only present the converse (not the
reverse) if feri debere ostendimus is in«.
terpreted ‘we sanction these doings.”
Fechtrup (p. 136 and n.) may have found
difficulties in gw? and in n quands.
However lartel's first reading has
scarcely any support, his second none.
Ὁ, Ritschl (p. 75) makes Cyprian im
part Cornelius’ letter *..nur an die
Bischofe und zwar in der geheimsten
Weise (rmpulerumt auribus intimari-
miu), But this phrase merely means
that he took eare that no one should be
ignorant of it: intimare has no tint of
secrecy about it (eq intimaversnt is
‘used of the declaration of the Jews that
they had no king but Cuesar, dito,
Hartel, App. p. 139, 19). The
thought of secrecy not only takes away
the contrast with Cypriar's treatment of
Novatias's letter, but he says expressly
dero et plebi legi pracepi, εν "m
Ritschl has fallen into another strange
mistake on ‘...ea qux ex diveno in
Acerbationibus depends on owqerts.
Yet Ritsch!'s. whole allegation against
reals on these two errors and on the
meaningless reading retenza in Ep, 4R.
132 CVPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
of communion could be determined for the Lapsed, the affair
of Felicissimus stood as a preliminary question, For, should
it be decided that his reception of repentant renegades with-
out terms of penance had been warranted by circumstances,
no further discussion on the Lapsed would be required. But
if the broad issue should be first decided in the opposite sense
to his, it might then be too late to introduce his conduct as a
disciplinary question. Condemnation would wear the appear-
ance of being based on ex post facto regulation. Whereas his
schism really consisted not in the views he had maintained
about the Lapsed, (for the question was yet open,) but in the
fact that he had re-admitted offenders when the bishops had
given notice that their cases were to be reserved to a council.
There is large indication that Cyprian was not present at
this debate and its decision, An honourable and experienced
lawyer would naturally avoid the position of a judge in a
case in which he was virtually plaintiff and Felicissimus de-
fendant. In writing of it subsequently to Cornelius he does
not employ the first person, which is I think his unvarying
practice when he records decisions at which he had presided,
‘To acquaint you’ (he says) ‘with what has passed here in
‘relation to the cause of certain presbyters and Felicissimus,
‘our colleagues have sent you a letter subscribed with their
‘hand, and by their letter you will learn the opinion and
‘decision they arrived at after giving audience to the parties‘
Lastly, there is intimation of the absence of Cyprian from
Carthage at the very conjuncture when, as I conclude, the
case of Felicissimus was before them,
In company with Liberalis, one of the senior bishops of
the province, he visited Hadrumetum*, about eighty miles
from Carthage, on I know not what errand. They found the
clergy there in official correspondence with Cornelius, and in
accordance with the resolution of the Council (which their
absent bishop Polycarp had not yet transmitted to them),
TEA S See Appendix ow Cities,
134 CVPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE,
Question 3. Novatéantsne,
For the Council at once became almost a council of war
on the more imperial question. Messengers came and went
from the field. Seldom has a council sat amid the outbreak
and clash of the questions they had to decide. Seldom has
a council been more wisely guided: seldom indeed swayed by
so tranquil and large-hearted a chief; seldom recalled to
consider the whole range of first principles rather than to
pursue or recoil from the passion of the hour,
What we now study as one of the most famous of
treatises | was in its first form an Essay or Oration ON THE
"THE CATHOLIC CH
n3 must shave been rapidly composed, for the
consideration pre=
the two or three
Ὁ the Scripture
ct resistance to the
e
EC s
from Rome requested audience, a certain Machaeus and Lon-
ginus, Augendus a deacon of Novatian's, probably the excom-
municated follower of Felicissimus, (not the only member
of that party who had taken a new colour at Rome,) and, as
their senior, Maximus a Presbyter, not the confessor, but one
who soon after pretended to the chair of Cyprian. Their
mission was personally to press the charges against Cornelius,
and solemnly to announce that Novatian had been conse-
crated Bishop of Rome.
We must narrate the circumstances of this startling event,
which had occurred after the departure from Rome of
Stephen and Pompey’, and now surprised the Council in the —
midst of their satisfaction.
It seems then that the party of severity, disappointed and
perplexed by the election, had been stimulated to action
partly by Evaristus, a bishop whom Cornelius regarded as a
prime mover in the enterprise’, But a more important actor
had appeared at Rome in the person of Novatus. He had
1 Tt becomes certain that this was the
order of events from the following ob-
servations, Stephanus and Pompeius
are not said to have brought any news
except that of Cornelius! consecration.
news of that of Novatian. Then the
Council (it is stated Ep. 44.
tavimus Ep. 44. 1) the report of their
‘own commission (Dom Maran, Fitz 5.
Cypr. XXI. erroneously states th
trary), because ches
of )
Er td ripae o e emer.
Boe due 4, it may be
observed means *eame on the top of
oar expectancy,? nef ‘came after Nova-
tian’s embassy! For the Council could
not have at once suspended the embassy
Ss ee
‘then they had received only Coreliua’
(vn letters for which they had sought
him, as Ritschl, p. 71, supposes it would,
|o position ascribable to Novatian alone
Auctor is properly a promoter, not an.
138
CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
Hence though a single passage implies that his virtual
enquiry into his conduct was impending
just before the persecution, is as certain
fas ἃ fact can bey sce po 111 sup.
Date of Nowatus’ journey to Rome.
Nothing but some singular coincidence
could have given us this date minutely.
But the determination of the true date
of the ordination of Cornelius removes
a difficulty which beset Pearson and all
earlier chronologers in atlempting to
fix it. In other points they have misled
themselves. (1) Cornelios was supposed
to have been consecrated in June 451.
(2) 1t was inferred from the words of the
Liberian Catalogue that Novatus had
practised with the Roman Confessors
as early ns January 251. (3) It was
inferred from Ap. $2. 2, 3 that he bad
fled to Rome to avoid the cegnidio as
to his conduct, which was to come off
"before the persecution began, £.« at the
latest, in the end of A.D. a49- (4) He
was organizing the opposition at Care
thage with Felicissimus towards the end
of the perseeution—towards March 23,
Easter A.D. 230, Af. 43-2. (5) He was
at Rome after Comelius’ consseration,
‘To reconcile these dates it was necessary
to suppose that he had made several
voyages to Rome while organizing his
party. But surely among his other
exertions in the cause of error this
would have received some m
the inconsistency of his shifting polic
at the two centres of his activity wor
have attracted more observation. Hi
ever, I hope to be excused for ἃ
(3) and (3) one voyage immedi
the death of Moyses, one or more eat
sets down the motive assigned for it—
dread ofthe trial—to party spite. Pactsn
‘is the fountain of this mistake (Ad .Sym-
promion, Ep. yy 6; Galland, Bild, SS.
uir. vol. vit. p. 263 (1268)].. He quotes
Dut
voluntaria.
precedes
nit...et hie latitavit.’ Bat what Cyprien
weally says is that Novatus avoided
excommunication for personal msde
meanours by discessien from the church
during the persecution, that is to say
by getting up, or joining, the party of
Kellesimus; from Ap. 4r. 2 we me
that Felicissimas took the imitating
and excommunicated the Cyprianic side
(sententiam quam prior dixit). In Ap.
52. 2 Cyprian mentions the voyage in
connection with the commencement of
the party of Felicissimus, but this ἔν
only à rbetorical juxtaposition because
he wishes to parallel Novatus's appoint
ment of a Bishop in Rome with his
former appointment of a Deacon im
Carthage. (a) Again as to the Liberian
Catalogue. The words are, under FA-
‘10S, *... Post passionem ejas Moyes et
Maximus presbyteri οἱ Nicostratus dine
conus comprehensi. sunt et in carcerem.
sunt rnissi. Eo tempore supervenit
Novatus ex Africa et separavit de ec-
clesia Novatianum et quosdam con-
fes postquam Meyses in carcere
defunctus est qui fuit ibi m, xi ἃ, αἰ ᾽ν
and under CORNKLIUS, *..Sub Epi-
scopatu ejus Novatus extra ecclesiam.
ordinavit Novatianum in urbe Roma et
Nicostratum in Africa. Hoc facte eon-
fessores qui se separaverunt a Cornelio.
cum Maximo presbytero, qui cum Moyse
ad ecclesiam sunt reversi... ap.
Lipsius, of. cit, p. 167. Now the ob-
οἵ these entries, which oecupy the
short memoirs, is to
of Moyses and Maxi-
mus who were commemorated at Rome
140 —— CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
the terms of communion in their own district, and the vicw
though unscriptural and unconstitutional is intelligible.
The spirit of Novatus illustrates itself in those presbyters -
of our own who, if they could, would repel from communion, |
celebrate or withhold marriage or funeral rites, or fix the age of
confirmation, on their own judgment ; who revolutionise ritual
without respect to either Bishop or 'Plebes'; who admit
to vows, direct the persons who take them, and pretend to
dispense from them.
Maximus and the other newly liberated confessors?, al-
ready biassed against Cornelius by the austerity of their own |
views, now worked upon to believe that he was ready to
sacrifice the Church's purity for a spurious charity, and —
stimulated by the temper of Novatus, determined to elect
Novatian* Their high character rendered it not impossible
to procure three country bishops to lay their hands, in the
supposed capacity of saviours of the Church, upon his head",
and to invest the first Puritan* with the attributes of the first
! Bp 4%
. separavit de ecclesia...’ Liderian
Catalague. Seep. Tim.
* Com. ap. Eus vie 48. We may
prelate's belief that the rite was per-
formed by ther in a state of inebricty,
though the assertion illustrates the pos:
sibilities of the time. Enlogius, Bp. of
Alexandria, ADs $79 had (Phot. Bish
᾿Αλέξανδρον, one of the bishops just
named, though even that will not mal
τόποι cpardv...dvevbusore) to succeed to
the episcopate, but Cornelius on dis«
covering that he was plotting his death
put an end to his ambitious designs by.
ordaining him a presbyter," We must
receive with qualification the statement
‘of Pacian that he became bishop with
‘out consecration (Ef. 3. 3). The cone
temporary language of the confessor
and of Cornelius (Ef. 49 and Eas. 1e]
is incontrovertible, Still if we put
Pacian’s cireamstantial expressions ‘abe
scatem...consecrante nullo.. per.
Jam (confessorum)' side by side with
yp. de unitate ecclesia 10, ' .. nemine.
Episcopatum dante,..'we maysuppow
that some little interval occured be
tween his election and conseeration, in
ich he would be called Episeopus
Romanus, whereas ordinarily the cons
a immediately followed.
4.8 Νανάτος τῆς τῶν χεγομένων,
142 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE,
again the inference from words be as just as it is obvious,
he was in fact prepared to acquiesce in a secondary place
at Rome, if only accepted as bishop of a church within a
church’,
lt was thus that Dionysius argued. ‘If it was against
‘thy will, as thou sayest, that thou wast promoted, thou wilt
‘prove this by retiring. 1t were good to suffer anything and
‘everything so to escape dividing the Church of God. And
‘martyrdom to avoid schism is no less glorious than martyr-
*dom to avoid idolatry* Nay, it is to my mind greater. In
‘one case a man is a martyr for his own single soul's sake.
* But this is for the whole Church. Even now wert thou to
‘persuade or constrain the brethren to come to one mind,
“thy true deed were greater than thy fall. This will not be
‘reckoned to thee, the other will be lauded. And if thou
‘shouldest be powerless to sway disobedient spirits, save, save
‘thine own soul. I pray for thy health and thy stedfast
‘cleaving to peace in the Lord,’
Now Dionysius’ actual view of the mischief which Nova-
tian was doing was conveyed in these terms to his own
namesake, then a presbyter, afterwards Bishop, at Rome:
‘wheeling on to the stage most unholy teaching about God;
‘falsely accusing our kindest Lord Jesus Christ as void of
‘pity; setting at nought the holy Laver; overturning the
* Faith and Confession that go before it; and while there was
'some hope of their continuance or return, chasing the Holy
‘Spirit away from them’!
Read side by side this opinion of the man’s work,
Dionysius’ letter to the man himself is surely a pattern of
controversial sweetness,
erat non inferior gloria sus.
martyrium ne scindatur ecclesia
H.E. visag. The text in Pearson,
Ann. Cypr. 25%) x. defective. Ru.
144 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
two important points, Both had held that the exclusion of
the Lapsed should be for a protracted period, to be measured
apparently by years. Both had agreed that the Martyrs -
should have a voice as to the course to be pursued. Nova-
tian had now advanced to the conclusion that mere time
could not restore their status as churchmen ; he was prepared
to act upon the letter of the theory which regarded* the
separation as more properly life-long. Again, if the Mar-
tyrs' opinion was to be respected it was no less valuable
when it favoured exclusion than if it recommended com-
prehension. If he was not aware that his own change of
views was an abandonment of catholicity, how could he have
expected to find Cyprian now inclining to shorten indefinitely
the term of exclusion, or foreseen that the influence of the Car-
thaginian Martyrs would be exerted in precisely the opposite
direction to that of the Roman? His ambassadors accord+
ingly, after being removed* from the assembly, appealed with
much vehemence to the primate in his church upon the next
Station-Day* as well as to the laity. Either then, or on —
their previous removal from the Council, it was replied that
Novatian had placed himself in a position external to the
church, and could not return except as a penitent. They
were however bitterly in earnest. One or two of them con- —
ferred privately with many leading members of the church in
the capital, others made the tour of some provincial towns to
push the cause", It was essential to the principles of such a
sect that, however few and far between, all the ‘ Pure’ believers
should be united in one body.
describe a session of the Council on ac«
count of the presence of an altar (Ej.
45.3) and of the consessus, Tt is esed.
pai if Hartel's reading de statione.
146 CVPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
the whole Province of Proconsular Africa had by this time
been informed of the conciliar reaffirmation of the Title of
Cornelius; to communicate the conciliar Resolutions on
Felicissimus and his adherents; and to enclose for the Con-
fessors, under cover to their true Bishop, a ' Brief Letter;
Finally when the explanation asked for through Primitivus
was sent, Cyprian was able to add that the Recognition of
Cornelius had been forwarded on from the Province through-
out Numidia and Mauretania’.
And now to take up the ‘ Brief Letter! The concentration
of energy, pathos and doctrine in so few lines is surely mar-
vellous*, He touches on the depression with which the news
of the Confessors' desertion had crushed him:— Against
* God's ordinance, against the Gospel-law, against the unity
*of the Catholic foundation, to have consented to the creation
‘of another bishop ! that is, to a thing divinely and humanly
‘impossible, the founding of a second church, the severing of
? Epfs 46 and gr.
* Ep. A5. 1I Sed εἰ por Provinciam
moriam, óc, Then later, EA. 48. ὃν
*Sed quoniam latins fusa est nostra Pro:
vincia, liabet etiam Numidian e Mav
ritaniam sibi cobserentes, ne in Urbe,"
Ac. 'Inasmuch as our Province is very
widespread, and has also Numidia and
Mauritania in close connection with it,
therefore, &c," (Peters, to support a
scheme of *Metropolit, Ober-metropo-
Jit, Kirchenprovinze' &c. wishes to
make AaÁd mean Em
tte majore, tinc demum scrupulo omni
de singulorum pectoribus exeusso, per
secret! (as O. Ritschl, sce p. 130, n. 3}
'eannot be the meaning, for the despatch
was read to the assembly, and to cos-
oral it would not have increased the
anthority, Cyprian’s object was to
place beyond doubt the facts of the
‘election whatever they were, So Bf.
44-1 Sat cis adventantibus at rel gni
retur," which is exactly parallel; Bf
48. 2 ' rebus illic,..pro veritate compers
Hv; 48. 4 5. nunc episcopatus tai e
veritas pariter et dignitms ajvrfisimu.
fata est! T therefore veabare
recta "discovered, ascer-
tained,” instead of sete. The were
would thus be ‘we resolved that the
‘bishops should cause letters to be cir«
culated among all in all directions here,
nowthat we had /eavmfthe real facts, and
were in a better position to confirm your
‘ordination, not a scruple at last remains
ing in any bosom.’
3 Ep 46.
FOUR OTHER PICTURES FROM A.D. 250.
Ir is only fair to the Reader that | should now at this point
remind him that eminent critics have drawn very different sketches
from those above of chief actors in the church affairs of A.D. 250.
I present outlines from two portraits of Cyprian by Otto Ritschl
and by Adolf Harnack, and, by the former, one of Felicissimus in
the character of the True Churchman, and one of a vanishing
Novatus. 1 ought to say that mine were earlier in print, but &
short contemplation of these may further clear some points.
It is natural that divines in Non-episcopal Confessions should
not only search (as we see) for a non-episcopal ordination, but should
trace the early wisdom and success of episcopal administration itself
either to ignored action on the part of the presbyterate or to masterful
ambitions of great prelates on behalf of their order; or again that
they should if possible exhibit instances in which, as one of them
naively expresses it, ‘things really do gv without a Bishop, and go
well, if only the Clergy step full in."
If my own judgement of what took place in those times be warped
(as I think theirs is) by prepossessions unperceived by myself, it is
my sincere desire to have them corrected by fact and document. To
these tests 1 commit the difference without reserve.
‘The first portrait shall be that of Cyprian before his own
Presbyters in the time before the Council, by Ο, Ritschl, My
abstract will be as just as I can make it.
1. Cyprian before his own Presbyters,
“The Roman clergy left responsible in the vacancy of their own
‘see, regarded the Carthaginian see as practically vacant through
‘Cyprian’s retirement, its clergy as responsible like themselves, and
‘themselves as responsible for suggesting to them a course like their
‘own. They wrote them therefore the Eighth Epistle.’—So far well.
‘Next, the Carthaginian clergy out of their perfect loyalty to
? Otto Ritschl, Cypriam v. Karthago und die Vorfasruny der Kirche Exster
Theil, Cap. i. (Góttingen 1885).
150 CHURCH AFFAIRS A.D. 250.
Fabian's martyrdom, and it was at once returned by him to its
authors for reconsideration. It proposed, as we have seen, no sab-
stantial plan. Its promoters felt ashamed of it and changed their
note. Yet this is the formidable document to the guidance
and terror of which we are asked to trace all the leniency of the
clergy and nearly the whole policy of Cyprian.
As to the effect upon him of the ‘Martyrs’ Visions? it is enough
1o observe that the Visions are not said to have been seen by the
Martyrs but by other persons, and that the one moral of all the
Visions is severely disciplinary and not relaxatory.
Again the ‘Radical’ clergy can in no sense be said to have
anticipated the action of Cyprian. They did indeed readmit to
communion. But Cyprian's point was not that the Lapsed should
be either admitted or repelled, but that they should not be admitted
(1) without open repentance, (2) without the formal assent of the
Church, These conditions, in which lies the gist of his whole policy,
they violated. Ritschl (p. 17) quotes from Ef. 15, 1 ante
actam. fententiam, ante exomologesin...factam, ante mautum., int
fositam to prove that Cyprian was not angry at their action but only
at their precipitancy. But he omits Cyprian'w contra emempelét
legem from the same clause, and words cannot exptess greater
Aperi than Cyprian's at the absence of enquiry and authority
scheme thesi ick. mai ecu] quem the
‘text and references above.
2 Cyprian before the Roman Presiyterz.
This is our second Portrait
hich his κυβέρνησιν his
ishop come so strongly out, would
geht und gut ! geht, wenn nur der Klerus
intritt, kann das Beispiel,’ &c.
πε CHURCH AFFAIRS A.D. 250. 151
M Bctid aa: 20 example of the adequacy of headless, unepiscopal
EEUU d che crest werk τὲ at once Pasor udin
‘Statesman (p. 25)—though not & well-educated one, Immediately on
‘hearing that Carthage had by his own act lost her Bishop, the Roman
(Ls hes ee ae ape ali rep enr
“onders to the Clergy of that city. It is quite an ^ Archlepiscopal In-
E ae ee se peers aa
they wrote respectfully as Bishop, to the
Oe ae rec oe ion uae
the reins of government in hand themselves.’ (p. 24.)
‘teally pause. There is in Ef 8 nothing to justify the
machination so mean and cruel, however prudent it may
ome. The Roman Clergy began mistakenly. But they were in
e lt position, Without a head themselves and not daring to
they now heard that the Second City of the Empire was
tea, and that by the Bishop's own act. Persecution was afoot
one. |t was very natural that they should write to the
without a thought that they were composing ‘a pendant
tothe Epistle of Clement tothe Corinthians '(p. 15). Cyprian
ee eae = ody fs Siu way se
in Ef. 20 says he writes to them not as bound to do so,
Rau a huh aad mis formed. They could net
counsel they sent bad been anticipated by Cyprian in
minuteness 5 PE a ef exitu DAMM
Slate id provided the means; that a scheme was
a the Lapsed, the * Martyrs, and the
hich they would be glad to borrow all that
E nex oe παν ξεξ eu groan
y changed their note ; but from the first there
ty in their conduct, rather too rough a straightforwardness.
yy to whom they wrote had had solemnly committed to them.
Cyprian himself all the powers which the Romans wished
* Discharge upon the spot both your own parts and mine"
qiie Abhardlungen (publishel in
honour of Carl von Weizseker's zoth
birthday). Freiburg T. B. r891-
4
EA meantime, while we are wai
‘bishop to be given us by God/—the different classes should
‘thus and thus (£f. 30. 8), Again, * We are the more obliged t.
bti AUR fceoro rines she decense of Fabien el nola
‘The passage referred to is, ‘If we are found neglectful, it will be said
‘to us as it was also said to our predecessors, who were such
‘prelates (Arzfositi), ‘That we have not sought that which was lost,
Dr Harnack admits or admires the ‘sarcastic’ or ‘cutting’ use
made of Scripture texts by the author (p. 25). ΤῊΝ τοῦ παν Besta
serve him to illustrate that criticism, but iod gaeiemeecs τ
Rome regarded themselves as Successors of the Popes,
"The representation of the rest of the correspondence takes its.
from these Principia’. Wie sitar of Nowstan sand 96 GERE
episcopal language, those of Cyprian exhibit his humiliation,
! Das Collegium spricht in ihm so, ἢ Ves,even to the distortion of
als würe ex selber der Bischof, ja es
redet von *nostri antecessores."
7 Ezek. c. xxxiv. v. 2, 4.
‘has perhaps here deceived Harnack by-
‘omitting the reference from both text Bassinnus here is that he "has arrived,”
and margin, ad Mowat. 14; Hartel, A Ei KR AM
Append. p.6s. Elsewhere he has it. — the (Carthaginian) sub-deacon.
154 CHURCH AFFAIRS A.D. 250.
‘that is hopeless; he falls back on previous offences, and after all
‘reserves the decision for his coming council. The true reason for
* Felicissimus! excommunication is his simple resistance to Cyprian,
“If Augendus adheres to him Ae és £o δὲ excommunicated for this
‘alone, Between the others excommunicated the only tie is their
‘opposition to Cyprian. The Commission Aad first applied 1s the
‘Clergy of Carthage to issue an excommunication. As dhey declined
“to do this, they issued it themselves. In their own opinion therefore
‘they must have been always competent to do it, and having three.
“bishops on their board—the number competent to:
UM wie ‘They returned to Carthage, and there added to the
two names more (Ej. 42).
“The five hostile presbyters acquired their influence a/ter the er
‘communication by the clergy of Gatus of Dida, Ais seen im the
‘ refusal of the same clergy to excommunicate Felicissimus. It comes
‘out strongly when the Commission did it in spite of the clergy:
‘they then had with them the majority of the Christians. The five
‘were the élite of the clergy, and enjoyed that popular confidence
‘which Cyprian forfeited by his absence.
“To them Cyprian now attributes the original opposition to his
je kindles good Christians against the Lapsed (such
Zp. 43); sees that he can never win back the followers
“of Felicissimus, and must rid the Church—and himself—of them.
‘Accordingly the Episcopal Council of A.D. 251 excommunicates
* Felicissimus and his foll
‘but having already drawn out c
abundant), | can ly suggest further that
186 CYPRIAN’S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
Question 4. The Decision on the Lapaed.
The primary question before the Council had been what
should be the position of the Lapsed? Τὰς determination
had been postponed first to the examination of the case of
Felicissimus, and secondly to the unexpected outbreak of
division in the election to the Roman bishopric. Both of
these nevertheless depended on the solution of the original
issue. Though the latter involved questions so much wider,
yet its origin was in the identical question before the Council;
and its present aspect illustrated the policy of free and early
conciliar action such as had been concerted in Africa. The
decision on Felicissimus was as we have seen a necessary
preliminary to that action. These two decisions indeed had
cleared off the extreme views on either side, Neither the
lax nor the purist view of Discipline could now be reopened.
Cyprian lets us know that the discussion was nevertheless a
prolonged and earnest one’, that the basis assumed alike by
the advocates of lenity and of severity was an examination
of Seripture, and that. thcy conceived as a distinct ideal for
their guidance the nercifülness of the character of God*.
Cyprian had. ved deepest attention on the subject.
He had develo conc his elaborate paper ON
MLL QUESTION 4. THE DECISION ON THE LAPSED. 157
they were much less disposed than he to give the martyrs
ἃ voice in their decisions. The primate was loyal to the
he had evoked.
The encyclical which contained the resolutions is lost’.
But its gist, and even its minutia, are extricable from an
admirable letter of Cyprian. The Epistle to Antonian is in
‘fa a pamphiet in length not far short of that On the Lapsed.
- Antonian was an African bishop who, while forwarding letters
ofadherence to Cornelius, privately acquainted Cyprian with
iain difficulties which he had felt in doing so, and received
fom him, after the Council closed, a restatement of the whole
It would seem then that Cyprian in council abandoned
‘more than one of his own suggestions. He admitted that
‘the postponement until death of the reconciliation of the
libelatics was a severity only applicable to the very hour of
cu when retrieval through a new confession was
open though terrible way. Certainly if penance was.
in times of ‘Peace’ this could only be because
infrequent and Return more infrequent still.
peace had been once restored to a Church which
from Lapse upon a great scale, the sentence of
exclusion was felt to be a cruel and an impolitic*
For the utilitarian aspect of the question was a
jble ome. In the later struggle with the Donatists
wams them that the 'Passion for Innocence' in
while practically unattainable could not, even if
be higher than the ' Utility of Unity” Upon the
‘tendency towards strictness felt by the unfallen he
restoration of the Libellarici only, not
Ex
158 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
adds, ‘The keys of Heaven were committed to the Apostle
*who fell, not to so many who stood firm ; it was ordained
“that a Sinner should open the gate to Innocence, for ar
“Innocent one might have closed it against Sinners.’
Considering therefore that penance without hope of miti.
gation could have no practical value, but that a return tc
pagan life or at best an adherence to some more tolcran!
schism would be its natural result, while on the other hanc
every spiritual help was requisite for persons who might
shortly be exposed again to persecution’, it was by thi:
Council ruled:—
l. That an individual examination should be held not
only of the facts, but further into the motives or induce
ments which had been presented to the weakness of the
Libellatici.
TI. That the Lapsed who had not sacrificed should be
restored after a considerable term of penance, and after public
application to their bishop for restoration’.
Ill, That those who had sacrificed should be restored at
the hour of death? if they had continued penitent.
IV. That such as had refused penance and public con;
fession until they were in fear of death should not then be
received*,
The Council did not rule, but Cyprian assumes, that one
reconciled as a dying man would not be again excluded if he
1 Epi 55065 Ts 1a 18,
3 Traheretur diu. pamnitentin et roga
retur dolenter paterna clementia, Zp,
, 6.
il 88. #7, Fechtrup, p. 119, alleges
Ep. 88. 6 to establish against Dupin
and Hefele that Rule I, when applied to
*sacrifieati,” implies that some of these
anight be restored earlier. But although
Cyprian says that their faul was of
various shades, he draws the widest
distinetion between them and the Li-
Dellatici. ‘Nee to existimes, Zp. 55. 13:
carissime frater, sicut. quibusdam vide:
tur, libellaticos cum saerificatis seqoar}
oportere! ‘The statement in the test
is, 1 think, accurate,
* Rp. 55. 33.
"The teaching of Dionysius ἧς exactly
the same in the beautifal fragment of
his epistle to Conon printed in Pitex's
Spicilegium Solermn. V, p, 15 from the
Bodleinn cod. Zaroccian. CXCV1» fo. 18,
an excerpt of which afterwards passae
for a Canon by ἃ confusion at first with
Conon. Vitra, op. city, 1. po xiv. arte w
‘of their embassy, A confessor Augendus
news was speedily followed by Nicephorus,
ἃ private note with fuller particulars of the
nt with which Cyprian was to be pressed
Novatianist delegacy had already started, and
incipal ‘authors’ of the movement. Primus and
"know but by name; Nicostratus was a frecd-
he had been one of the powerful Seven
after sharing the prison of Moyses and
mow permanently alienated from the
DON d AME:
so, considering tbe length
SA is wall ge tthe Carr
ginisn Council which met in April, and
the unhealthy season to which it would
throw the Roman Council.
* Ep ye
160 CVPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
Church. He is accused by Cornelius not only of emb 1
church funds (which might mean that he had carried sui
over to what he held to be the true succession), but also o
having defrauded the patroness to whom he owed his fr
dom}. Such reports however easily passed into ci
and perhaps shew little but that he had funds at disposal
just as the accusations of avarice against Novatus have
doubtless to do with the pecuniary organization of the
sect®,
Still more notable delegates were the Bishop Evaristus*
who had been one of Novatian's consecrators, and to whom
his 'Commons' had instantly elected a successor; and lastly
Novatus himself, once more on his own ground, fortified by
his success at Rome‘.
The ground was however less secure behind him than he
trusted. Cyprian does not hesitate to ascribe the next act of
the drama in some measure to the withdrawal from Rome of
his great influence’. The very day after he reached Carthage
with his colleagues, the acolyte of Cornelius sailed into the
port, and with the warning we have mentioned he delivered a
sccond letter. He had in fact hurried on board 'the very
‘hour, the very moment,’ says Cornelius, ‘of the conclusion
*of a Station in which Maximus, with his fellow confessors
1 Ep. go, The Lil
states that he was made bishop i
which is possible, bat may be due to a
confusion with Maximus.
* Ep. so, avaritia Martel for common
observes that the name of Novatian is
dy
reading pranitate; cf. Ep. ga. 2.
# See p. 135.
* The omission of the name of Nova-
tian, designated only ‘hujus scelerati
hominis, led some to regard this (e)
letter of Cornelius as a fragment. Cou-
stant however (Routh, A.
3133) shewed that to drop the name
of objectionable persons was ἃ common
practice with popes and others. Routh
out τὸ βάπτισμα (Eus. vi. 43, Routh,
TH. p. 67). Cyprian, on the other
hand, who had not the bitterness of
Cornelius, evidently plays on the cons
currence of names and acts, ‘Novae
ἄκη! et Novati novas...machinas*
‘Novatus...
cupidus?
further could be determined without the bishop.
d day he convened a full presbytery with the
Individual opinions were pronounced and re-
quotes from £g. qg. 4 refers to the first
‘embassy of which Novatur waa not 2
member,
Wer AUD aie
162 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE,
corded’. The confessors, who again appeared, took the same
dignified ground as before. Allowances must be made on
both sides. They listened to an exhortation to sincerity. But*
they simply asked to be received back again without penance
or disgrace’. ‘They had been imposed upon. Facts had
“been misrepresented to them. They had never intended to
‘set up a second bishop. The essential unity of the episcopate
‘was clear to them as to others, They had wished for one
“true bishop, and they had not, until undeceived, recognised
‘such an one in Cornelius.’ Charity and policy alike forbade
harshness towards such sufferers and such penitents; the
laity impulsively embraced them, they wept for joy, they
broke out into loud thanksgivings. The presbyters opened
their circle and took Maximus* back to his old place near the
Locunus ἂρ MAXIMUS.
J Sententias,..quanctsubjectas lees: 4 See de Rosi, Rema Softerramany
vol. 1, pp. 395, δ, Tav. xix. §, vol, 0
pis the name is common,
yet it is scarcely likely that another
siderantes. E CUEUU doni em.
stmction unless Aerfahimur, or some
such word, has slipped ovt
* 1 can assign no other force to their
‘unknown Maximus, also a presbyter,
should have foand a place, with bis
name in Greek and in lettering of that
age, in the catacomb chapel of, and so.
to the side of, the bishop Cex
anelius, whom the influence of δὰ έν Maxi-
mus so largely contributed to establish.
‘The statement that he was martyred
under Valerian, Baron. ed Now. 1g,
ap. Routh, A. S. in. p. 39, i
answered by Tillemont, t. 112, The
Depositio Martiram (Mommsen, ej. cit,
D p. 6) has this entry, Mense Julio vi.
ld. *Et im Maximi [sc. cremeterio]
|
164 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE. -
with a Council of sixty others from Italy and with many
presbyters and deacons, accepted and promulgated the same
decisions, and excommunicated Novatian on account of his
inhumane doctrines.
The right direction of Roman and Italian opinion was (as
we have seen) aided by the powerful sympathy of Dionysius.
He had followed up his bracing advice to Novatian' and his
reply to Cornelius by a letter, singularly called *diaconal*)
addressed to the Romans themselves ‘through Hippolytus*";
ἃ second direct to them ‘on peace and likewise on repent-
ance —that is, on the Restoration of the Lapsed ; onc to the
Confessors, while still adherents of Novatian*, and two more
after their return.
It seems to require more knowledge than we possess to
enable us to decide whether the Hippolytus, through whom
the first letter to the Romans was transmitted, was the great
*Elder*' and philosopher, whose episcopal work though not
of this synod, called by Jerome (who
treats it as almost one with the Car-
thaginian) ‘Synodus Romana Italica
‘Africana’ (Lib, de Vir, lustre C.
66), Labbe, 1. pp. 865—868, misled
‘by Baronius, has made three. Cf.
Zonaras aii, 29, ed, Dindorf, MI. pp-
138 738
1 Eus. 27. E, vie 4$.
3 See Note at end of this Section.
? Ens. Jf. Δ. vi. 46 ἐξῆς ταύτῃ καὶ
τέρα ru ἐπιστολὴ τοῖε ἐν "Ρώμῃ τοῦ
Διονυσίον φέρεται διακενικὴ διὰ "Tros
Aérow ταῖν αὐτοῖε δὲ ἄλλην, km
Jerome, de Viris Ilustr. 69 *Diony-
usn Cyprimi et Africans synodi
plurimas misit Epistulas, qi
hodie et ad Fabíum, .
episcopum, scripsit de
penitentia, et ad Romanos per Hip-
polytum alterum, &e.’ Jerome (op. cit.
61) knew Eusebius’ list of Hippolyto
‘writings and had "found (weBjvei]
many more of those which Eusebius (vi.
a2) said were to be found (eÜpoer ἄν],
Both name the πρὸς Ναρκίωνα and the
πρὸν ἀπάσαε τὰν αἱρέσεις "adversus omnes.
hacreses.”
* Ear. ALB. vic 46 n δὲ τῇ τοῦ
Novdrov συμφερομένοις γνώμῃ,
Mal, Clarsicorwm Auctts ¢ Vat. Cod,
editorum t. X. 1838, p. 484, has a
“fragment of Dionysius which, from its
‘peculiar touches on * Peace," indicating
& context on that topic, I rather aseribe
to thir letter named by Eusebius than
one of the dee treatises ‘on Peni —
amed by Jerome, to which Mai
(viz. ad Fabium Antioch, ad
i ad Armenios}, Jerome, de
Vir. Mt. 69.
Li Me Bp Lightfoot, dportolic Fathers,
S. Clement of Rowe, vol. ting
COUNCIL AT ROME. 165
acertained by Eusebius, or, more strangely, by Jerome',
lay among ‘the nationalities’ in the Port of Rome. If
this were possible the idea is historically attractive. For
_ though there is no colour for attributing to him actual
‘Novatianism, yet his former attitude towards two prede-
cewors of Cornelius,—with whom he ‘was at daggers drawn’?
ani whom he so relentlessly depicts—gave ground enough
for his being thought not unlikely to take the Puritan side, as
afterwards he was believed to have done®, That position had
‘Deon aright but very fierce resistance to a low tone of doctrine
animorals Neither side in Rome would now be prompt to
appeal to him, charged as they stood the one with laxity, the
‘other with irregularity ; while he, at his great age, with his
profound study of the working of sects, was the very man
‘though whom the great Alexandrine would naturally ap-
‘Peach the Romans‘, Nor would any policy be so likely
Ao sure. his cooperation, which was of serious consequence,
athe Council It bears the singular title of “A Diacomic
through Hippolytus to them in Rome.’
_ Cyprian approved the mingled severity and moderation of
a of the Roman Council, and letters of assent
many Italian bishops who had not attended it.
Next, in pursuance of its resolutions, (if it had not been
subject of the programme’) a bishop Trofimus,
the Inscription by Damasus, while Da-
fortur premerent cum jussa tyranni
Presbyter in scisma semper mansisse
Novati...Hse audita reri Damasus
probat omnia Christus,” De Rossi,
acr. Cher. Urb. Rom. 1. p Sy.
* On Chronological and other Diff-
culties see Note at end of Section,
? [t seems to me, though 1 do not
know that the allusion has been notico’,
that the words “éractame cum collegis
plurimis Aabite saxceptus ext Trofimus"
a.
166 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE,
who had offered incense in the troubles and been imitated by
his flock, was together with them restored to communion
by Cornelius It is not denied that his people's attach-
ment to him and the assurance that they would follow his
return, eased the reception of Trofimus. But Cyprian, who
defends the fact against misrepresentations forwarded by
Novatianists to Africa, denies on his own knowledge that he
was suffered to resume his Orders’, It is improbable that
a lapsed bishop would be obliged or allowed to do public
penance. The statement itself that Trofimus ‘with penance
of entreaty confessed his old fault’ is against it, and it is
said that he made ‘satisfaction’ although it is presently
added that ‘the return of the brethren made satisfaction
“In Ap. 67. 6 Cornelius ts
‘particularly mentioned as concurring
.— with the whole episcopate ἔπ the im-
" ility of reinstating lapsed tithops
hol oer [He restored one of
ion, Nica. can. 16 ine
Seaton back (hh nlyas layman) - Leo 1, Af. 167 (2),
Wm = COUNCIL AT ANTIOCH.
_ As for other great centres, Novatian had announced to
them hís election as he did to Carthage', and not always
‘without effect. His high tone was impressive’, Even Alex-
‘dria had needed a strong remonstrance from its prudent
chief, Dionysius the Great". To the Egyptian
‘church also at large, and to Conon, bishop of Hermopolis,
‘in particular’, Dionysius addressed papers on the Lapsed
and their Repentance, carefully distinguishing for them the
different classes of offending’; nor can his letter to Origen
BUE O: laye been uunconnacted with die discussion,
Tothe Armenians he wrote on the same question with the
‘ame precision* as to the Egyptians; again to the Laodicenes
τούς Thelymidres.
— But about no See was such anxiety imminent as about
"There the Patriarch Fabius had a certain leaning
‘the Schism’ Dionysius wrote ‘much’ to him on
and so free was the East from some of the
“Western dangers, that he is able to lay great stress on the
en by the martyrs. ‘As they accepted these penitents,
them in prayers, renewed social intercourse with
so let us; mot constituting ourselves critics and re-
their judgment"! ‘Christ Himself—as in the case
|", a lapsed man who was endowed with miraculous
ταραννωμάτων διαγράψαν.
" Eu& de. Hieron. ἐν Virit Mt. e.
‘ad Armenion de pamitenüa et
τῷ σχίσμανι.
* Eos wh 42 προσευχῶν αὐτοῖν «αἱ
deridreum ἐκοινώνησαν.
© Les δοαιμαστὰν vit ἐκείνων specu,
10 Eos. vie qe.
AD. 352.
^"
168 CYERIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
the synodical decision of Africa, then by Cornelius’ ac
both of the Roman and the African Councils, and yet i
by a letter from Cyprian urging the general excomt
cation of Novatian and all his followers'. Lastly Cort
addressed to him that memoir to which we owe our fi
knowledge of the great Puritan's antecedents. His att
had indeed been so menacing? from the first that (as Dion
himself wrote to Cornelius on receiving his announceme
his election along with the rival missive of Novatian) the
great prelates of Cilicia, Cappadocia and Palestine, He
with his bishops, and Firmilian and Theoctistus, had res:
to confer with him in Synod in his own city and in
Dionysius to join them there,
Fabius died ere they met. His successor Deme
held the Council in March of the next year, 252 A.D.,
though not without effort, secured the condemnatio
Novatus—meaning thereby Novatian—as 'the Frien
Sin*' In that same sense Jerome and others call his op
! Ens. vi; 43. The lettersof Cornelius.
were in Greek, those of Cyprian in Latin.
Of Cyprian’s there were two at least
which are not extant if, as we gather
from the context, they were addressed
direct to Fabius, Eusebius, just as he
cannot distinguish between Novatus and
Novation, fails also to perceive that the
principles of the legislation originated
in Afren. The letters of Comeliue
were certainly four in number, Euseb,
Vi. 43 speaks of epistles which gave
information about the *Roman synod,
and the opinions of them of Italy,
Africa, and the countries there" (these
must have been at any rate two): of
a third, about the determinations of the
synod (rept τῶν κατὰ τὴν σύνοδον ἄρε-
σάντων), which is Jerome's thin epistle
of Comelias * De Gestis Synodi" (Hic
de Virr, Hil, 66, Corneliui): and οἱ
fourth from which he gives long extracts
om Novatian’s former proceedings, the
confessor the contecrating bishe
earlier opinions, baptism and ord
a5 2 presbyter, and condemnatior
ἃ list of the condemning bishoj
their sees. This fourth seems |
respond exactly to Jerome's |
very protix’ one on the ‘causes of.
tianism and the anathema. Je
first two “De Synodo, Romana, |
Africana,’ and 'on Novatis
the Lapsed’ correspond well «
to Eusebius (two) "Epistles,"
argues in vain that Eusebius kj
only three, and Rufinus of two
lemont recognises the four. Tt
gular that Jerome calls the Anti
patriarch Flavian, whom Eusebii
sistently calls Fabius
3 doa. κρατύνειν rives ἐψεχείη
σχίσμα, Eus. vi. 46,
* φιλομαρτήμων, Libellus Syn
Labbe, οἵ, Euseb. vi 4g; vii
and the Synodicon, Labbe, vol. t.
TL uL COUNCIL AT ANTIOCH.
‘the Cainite heresy—so deadly to the brethren, so desperate
‘initself. —
Difcaities in identifying Hippolytus throwgh whom nius wrote
Bu uei ΩΡ d sae
The point really is whether Hippolytus of Portus was living in
AB 2jo—1. If this were admitted it would not have been doubted that
Bina ne Hippolytus meant. Esai reese esee
Lightíoors conclusions one does it with uncasiness'.
MEN D nnd et he il
τὸ VAT ijj uni tnt Do V nor beard of ation
is here.
meti—unless it
| Dates do not forbid us to think of Hippolytus as interested in Nova-
βαίνει in the year 250.
(ἡ Bp. Lightfoot holds that it is not possible, because his literary
Se Unhappily we have not the promised proof
date, for the learned and interesting essay was alas! never
_ bur even so, 60 years is no unexampled period for such
be sustained.
οἵ old age appears again and again im Prudentius* for
th. Ifhe were 25 in 190 A.D. he would in 250 be 85.
‘Lightfoot thinks that, having been deported in 235 to Sar-
ds expressly called £uula nociva, along with Pontianus, who
on Sep. 27, Hippolytus was not likely to have survived.
ement in the Liberian Catalogue is this (Mommsen, Chronogr.
Lipsius, TLR Agi ites e anche depend
exoles sunt deportati in Sardinia in insula nociva.
accepts in the essay quoted a juvenile
lucubration O the Mortyrifom and
Corememoration of 5. Hippolytus in
the omma! of Classical amd Sacred
Philology, vol. t, pp. 188 sqq.* 1854.
7. Prudent, ei sufrigsenex vv. 3) 199.
senior 78, caput niveum, canities 157,
n
38.
3. Presbyter, sec p. 168, note 3.
* May not the curious
*discinctus est’ allude to the divestiture
οἵ the High Priest Aaron ia prepara-
‘tion for death ?
170 CYPRIAN’S FIRST COUNCIL. OF CARTHAGE.
(ed. Duchesne, vol. 1. pp. 62, 145, and note), which reads deputatl ab
Alexandro and insula Bucina. (A.D. 235 was really sub Maxintino.]
But Sardinia was mot universally fatal And Pontian's death is
mentioned, and that of Hippolytus is πος. If it be said that Pontían's
alone i» mentioned because he was the bishop, this would have also
checked the mention of their joint exile. The passage has no bearing
on the date of Hippolytus death. Its one suggestion is that Hippolytus.
did ποέ die when Pontian died.
Neither has the Defositio martirwm any bearing on that date (as
G. Salmon in Dict. Christian Biog. 11. p. 88 v. suggests) 11 has *idus
Aug. Ypoliti in Tiburtina et Pontiani in Calisti They may have been
put together, as Cornelius and Cyprian soon were, on account of their
connection in life.
(3) Bue it is also true that no activity of Hippolytus is mentioned
between A.D. 235 and 250, which at first seems strange considering the
man he was.
But yet again what documents are there in which we should have
expected him to be mentioned as alive? And old age and infirmities after
an exile to Sardinia at the age of 6o might have kept him quiet, and
nevertheless he might be the right person to transmit ἃ letter of recon-
ciliation.
The first sixty years of this century are like an underground tunnel
with two breaks of broad daylight One is that vivid light which
Hippolytus himself throws on the times of Callistus and Zephyrinus
AD, 202—222 ; the other is that of the Cyprianic correspondence 247—
259
From 212—247 we have. e no demum Met to illustrate such a
i ke
M σις actors; if in fact Dio-
we find him at once in a
wiv διακονικώτενοι γεγονέναι καὶ μῆλλον οἷοί τ᾽ de-
πορίζειν τῇ wider ὧν ἐπεθύμει ;ἢ Xenophon, Econom, Vil, AY ὁπόταν dm
“πιστήμονα ταμιείας xnl διακονίας παραλαβοῦσα ἐπιστήμονα καὶ πυστὴν καὶ
διακονικὴν ποιησαμένη παντὸς ἀξίαν iype; Aristoph. Plout, 1170 ἵν᾽ εὐθέως
διακονικὸν εἶναι δοκῇαν may be applied in the same sense to a Letter of
practical advice.
IV.
Constitutional Results of the First Council.
All these evidences of activity and wide-spread communi-
cation are made still more interesting by the observation
of certain constitutional points which the decision of the
Carthaginian Council involved. We note four such.
First, the submission of the views of the primate himself
course which he proposed to them in the De Lapsis was
less lenient than theirs! (although even this was to be still
lÍLiY. CONSTITUTIONAL RESULTS OF IT. 173
exchanged for Episcopal letters’; value being thus attached
to them while the proper regimen of the Church was formally
supported. But the Council of Carthage is in its reaction
‘rong enough to pass over in silence the ‘merits’ which had
Μιεὶν threatened all.
For now comes out the unity of their decisions as against
both of the schismatical leaders; since it is definitively settled,
Merdiy, against Novatian, that there are no remissible offences
hich it is beyond the power of the regular organization of
‘the Church to remit, -
And fourthly, against Felicissimus, that no sanctity*, con-
(ering authority to assign terms of communion or remit sin,
tesides in any class or person save in the body of the Church
“with its authentic administrators*,
"The principles then which had now been soli idified into legis-
invested the primeval Christian institution
αἰ episcopacy with all the functions of government, and accord
ie κα sentiments of the metropolitan were, with
consent‘, overruled, while his past acts as bishop
g were ratificd. No representations against a
: seated were to be admissible* The Resolu-
2 We mast not say the administmtors.
alone. The function of the laity i»
repeatedly, though not very explicitly,
urged. In Eg. 64. 1 it is an objection to
one readmission that it was made ‘sine
petitu et conscientia plebis."
* socias me nihil leviter egisse sed...
omnia ad commane concilii nostri con-
silium distulisse.. et nune ab his non
recedere qu semel in concilio nostro de
commun! conlatione placuerunt... £j.
[a
* Gravitati nostro negavimus conve:
mire wt college nostri jam delecti
pateremur. AA qa
174. CYPRIAN’S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
And now if we remember that each bishop was the represen-
tative of a free election, and their assembly a free assembly of
equals —the only free elections, the only free, the first represen-
tative assembly in the world—we shall see that Episcopacy had
virtually taken its place among Roman Institutions, informed
with Roman strength and Roman respect for Law, summing
in itself, and disparting to its members powers judicial and
executive, reserving to itself all appeals, and originating legis-
lation, It was an Institution not only fraught with the ruin
of polytheism but rich with the freedom and the order of the
coming society.
v.
Corollaries :—Puritanism : Saint-Merit: Flight from
Suffering. The DE LAPSIS.
Cyprian's Letter to the Confessors on their return contains
a passage of about twenty lines which Augustine cites in full
no less than three times in separate works’, as containing the
absolute Scriptural answer to Puritan separations. It is the
earliest exposition of the parable of the Tares, and of S. Paul's
image of the Palace with its Vessels precious or vile as accu-
rate presentments of the lastin nditions of Church Society.
No human right ex Ὁ eradicate tares, or to break the
'cedom to become good
f belongs to every soul
ark assumptions of the
nd how many long
and Calvinism, rudimen-
ction of converted spirits
t the Donatist Cresconius, ii, 43, and
MILY. ^ COROLLARIES FROM FIRST COUNCIL. 175
against the kingdom of sin, do these few words bear
witness,
The Letter was accompanied by an interesting gift:—
Copies of his treatises ON THE LAPSED and OF THE UNITY
oF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Of the latter we shall speak presently,
To postpone with Bp. Pearson’ the date of the former to
November is to attribute to Cyprian ἃ publication out of date
@ its appearance, and counsels upon which he had already
improved. ‘The Avenging' of which he speaks in the open-
ing is no doubt the destruction of Decius in that November*,
But while large parts of the book, as we have it, wear all the
marks of an oration’, other parts never can have been so
delivered, and are plainly to be reasoned out in the study.
Ts fact we have in our hands the edition published some
months later; as we have in several of Cicero's orations; and
τ this edition belongs the actual exordium.
On the other hand the strong and immediate Apology
for Fugitives marks the moment when prejudice against his
m retirement has not yet died out’.
ltisa work of a high order. Its literary form is excellent,
but far beyond that praise is the power with which it lifts the
‘@ntentions of parties and the vexing questions of the moment
into a region in which they can be seen as deductions from
lang principles, and determined on high grounds. So
Ὁ rise, so to uplift is to the full as difficult in church politics
%in mundane controversies, And the high aim is effected,
Ad the tone sustained without one failure.
Its outline may be sketched as follows:
- After the close of a persecution an ideal position of De Lape
len. Cypr. A.D. 261, 6. αν. * See for example c. 2, when he
ease deti qut
176 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
spiritual influence is occupied by faithful sufferers, even by
voluntary exiles for conscience’ sake; and by those who had
been faithful in danger, although not in actual suffering.
To the Lapsed sympathy is due; and his sympathy rings
as truc as his sense of discipline; especially with those who
had broken down under intensity of torture. Between these
and others he draws a broad line.
After shewing that Persecution is not without its good
and useful service he proceeds to analyse the causes of Lapse
which have been so wide-spread and so operative through
the whole Church,—and that in spite of forewarnings, of the
unnatural horrors of the very act, of all the given opportunities
for avoiding it. He concludes that the secret is to be found
in the world-leavened spirit of the Church.
He next enters upon a close argument (1) with the party
of lax readmission, (2) with the Confessors who promote it,
and (3) with those of the Lapsed who seek it; setting before
them deterrent experiences and the dishonesty of the position.
He concludes by an exhortation to honesty of confession,
to seriousness of repentance and to activity in good works.
High hope is yet in store for them.
The book on the Lapsed has largely contributed to our
narrative. Its teachings concerning the Eucharist, and its
evidence upon contemporary Supernaturalism will be dis-
cussed each in its own place. Upon Penitential Discipline,
its views, equally remote from Protestant and Roman stan-
dards, have been exemplified sufficiently,
L Yet we may now further remark on the singularity of
the relation in which Romanism stands to the Cyprianic view
of the influence of interceding saints. Their merit, (Cyprian
holds,) may aid sinners in the day of judgment, in the world
to come’, But they cannot on earth reverse or disturb
the organization and working order of the visible Church.
3 De Lapris, e. 17.
I. v. CYPRIAN "ΟΡ THE LAPSED,’ 177
Departed martyrs are heard in the Apocalypse still praying
to be avenged. How can they in that situation be the
defenders of others'?
How ingenious then is the Romish combination of a
Supposed accumulation of meritorious treasure with its official
dispensation by visible authorities!
IL His opinion* that there might be occasions when a
man would not be justified in accepting the offered crown of
martyrdom, and that flight from persecution in such circum-
stances was ‘a private confession of Christ as martyrdom is
a public one,’ must haye saved to the Church valuable lives,
although the problem of decision in any given case was not
the least of the difficulties which arose between Christianity
and heathenism.
The eloquence of the De Lapsis seems almost perfect.
The style has gained in lucidity though still here and there
the touches arc a little too ornamental. There arc few finer
passages than the triumphal ode in prose with which he cele-
brates ‘The White Cohort of Christ/—the Confessors, men,
women and children, restored to the Church after their war-
fare, A touching instance of its felt power is an adaptation
of two passages from it on an African inscription’,
Magus Innocent Child.
Now thou beginnest existence among the Innocent.
How stedfast now is Life to thee.
How joyful thou art to be welcomed by thy Mother the Church
on thy return from this world,
Let the sighing of our hearts be stilted.
Let the weeping of our eyes be stayed.
3. De Lapris, c. 18. tum exeipet mater ecelesia de oc | muny
δ Ἀν che a do revertenlem. conprematur pecto-
7 Pitta, Spicilegium Solem. vol. ἐν. ram gemis. struatur letus oculo-
P 436, MAGYS puer innocens | ee — rum. The name Magus and a peculisr
jam inter innocentis ccepisti. | quam arrangement of cross and palm branch
staviles tivi bmc vits est | quam te le- indicate » Carthaginian origin for the
n 12
178 CYPRIAN'S FIRST COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE,
Another beautiful passage! and one which illustrates how
the oratory of Cyprian sometimes piles itself up like that
of Barrow, is worthy of quotation upon the obliteration of
repentance by over hasty communion,
“This is no peace but war. He does not join the Church
' who parts from the Gospel. Why do men call an injury a
‘blessing? Why give to impiety the style of “Pity”? How
‘do they pretend to give communion, when they interrupt the
‘repentant lamentation of those who have need to weep in-
‘deed? Such teachers are to the lapsed as hail on corn; are
‘as a star of tempest to trees; the ravage of pestilence to
‘flocks and herds; the wildness of the storm to ships at sea.
"The solace of everlasting life they steal away; uproot the
“tree; creep on with sickly suggestion to deadly infection ;
‘wreck the ship ere it enter the harbour. Such easiness yields
“no peace, but annuls it; gives no communion but hinders
‘salvation. It is a fresh persecution, a fresh temptation. Our
* subtle foe employs it in his advances to assail the fallen yet
“again with unperceived devastations: stilling their lamenta-
“tion, silencing their sorrows, wiping out the remembrance of
‘their sin, hushing the groaning heart, quenching the weeping
‘eyes, drowning the entreaties of long and full repentance
‘toward a deeply offended Lord,—and all the while it stands
‘written, “Remember from whence thou art fallen and re-
“pent.”
monument itself, The Cypriani pas:
sages are De Lageis (3) Quam cor
ates excipit mater ecclesia de pralie
revertentes, (16) comprimatur pectorum
gemitus, slafuatur fetus oculorum. Tt
has been suggested to correct slatuatwr
as in liself absurd to struatur by the
monument, However slatwatur isquite
Cyprisnic ; ‘Si fontem siccitas séatwat,"
ad Demetr o 7. ‘The second and
third lines also of the Inscription seem.
quoted, but I know mot whence.
[Hartel « laeto sinu — pectoris.]
τς, 16,
|
CHAPTER IV.
CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.’
ἐν
Time and Substance of the Treatise.
THE two or three leading motives of this victorious essay
were sketched at the point where we had to outline the
principles on which the Council acted, The flesh and
blood, so to speak, the colour and the warmth, claim nearer
attention.
The conjuncture at which it was read to the Council!
is discernible. Allusions to Novatian and to his having
assumed the episcopate are plain and numerous’. On the
other hand there is no reference to Felicissimus and his fac-
tion, a subject which in a paper on unity could not have been
avoided unless it had been alrcady disposed of. Allusions
there are’ to laxity and dissoluteness on the part of former
confessors, but without any reference to methods to be
adopted towards them, and only in illustration of the posi-
tion that confessors (and so Novatian) were not secure from
falling away. Thus the publication of the treatise is marked
1 Ep. 54.4. Inde Unitate c. $ we — interitum pro salute, ἅς, c.
have a trace of its original character — loco...multos pasto; c.
as a Lecture or Essay addressed to
collcagucs: "Quam unitatem tenere
firmiter et vindicare demas maxime
episcopi qui in ecclesia gravidemus."
? c, 3, ministros Justitiae arserewler..
IV.1. “THE PROBLEM OF THE UNITY. 181
as after the settlement of the question of Felicissimus and
before that of Novatian was determined.
‘The position of Novatian was the problem of the hour.
Heresy had hitherto been manifold and fantastic. But
Schism,—meaning secession upon questions not originally
doctrinal,—had been almost unknown. Now, however, be-
ginning from the central see, the Church reeled with the new
possibility of being cleft in twain upon an enquiry as to
whether she possessed disciplinary power for the reconcilia-
tion of her own penitents,
"The rationale of such a separation, its relation to the
divinely preconceived economy— What such a portent meant?
How God could suffer it?'—was the question on many lips.
“It is not (they said) as though a new dogma or mysticism
‘attracted the speculative and devout. But with teaching
‘identical, amid undoubted holiness of life, we see Altar
‘against Altar, Chair against Chair, in the metropolis of the
“world and Church.’ This is the problem which Cyprian sets
out to solve, ‘The characteristic danger of the age when
‘Christianity is for the first time widely accepted is the
‘presentment of old error under Christian forms,
*Such danger can be detected only by distinct concep-
‘tions as to the abode of truth, clearness as to the Scriptural
‘idea of unity. These are not far to seck. When the Lord
“gave Peter his commission, " Whatsoever tou shalt bind
‘shall be bound,” and then renewed the commission to
‘all the Apostles, " Whosesoever sins ye remit they are
*'remitted, it is obvious that He placed all alike on the
*same level’, yet, by first addressing Peter alone, He indicated
‘the Oneness or Unity of the commission® itself. So ever
* Hae erant. utique et ceteri apostoli Ξ Pacian, f. 3, €. rt, repeats the
fllostration with clearness! Ad Petrum.
locutus et Dominus, ai unum, ideo at
unitate fundare ex uno, mox idipsam
in commune pracipient.
182 ‘THE UNITY, ITS BASIS AND HISTORY.
'since, this tangible bond of the Church's unity is her one
‘united episcopate, an Apostleship universal yet only one—
'the authority of every bishop perfect in itself and inde-
“pendent, yet not forming with all the others a mere agglo-
*meration of powers, but being a tenure upon a totality, like
‘that of a shareholder in some joint property’,
Such is his statement of the historic and existent con-
ditions as against the threatening schism. He continues,
"The man who holds not this church unity, does he believe
‘that he holds the Faith? He who contends against the
“Church, is he assured that he is within the Church? The
'Old Testament and the Pauline teaching harmonize with
‘the Gospel as to this unity. And the episcopate above all
‘is bound to exert itself in the maintenance of its own
‘indivisible oneness.’
Then follows the famous and beautiful passage on the
lees analogies of this spiritual unity, ‘There is one
* Church which outspreads itself into a multitude (of churches),
wider and wider in ever increasing fruitfulness ; just as the
un has many rays but one only light, and a tree many
‘branches yet one only heart, based in the clinging root;
‘and, while many rills flow off from a single fountain-head,
‘although a multiplicity of waters is scen streaming away in
‘diverse directions from the bounty of its abundant overflow,
“yet unity is preserved in the head-spring. Pluck a ray away
‘from the sun’s body! unity admits no division of light.
‘Break a bough off a tree! once broken it will bud no more.
‘Cut a rill off from the spring! the rill cut off dries up. So
‘too the Church flooded with the light of the Lord flings rays
‘over the whole world. Yet it is one light which diffuses
‘itself everywhere ; the unity of the body knows no partition.
‘She reaches forth her boughs over the universal earth in the
'richness of her fertility, broadens ever more widely her
'bounteous flowing rivers, and still there is one head, one
3 Episcopatus unus est cujus a ringulir in zolidum pars tenetur. c. δ.
Wen ITS ANALOGY. ITS VIOLATION. 183
‘source, one mother, rich in ever succeeding births, Of her
“we arc born; her milk our nurture, her breath our life.”
Scripture, he proceeds to shew, teems with examples and
illustrations of this unity. ‘The Sons of Christ are the sons
‘of his undefiled spouse. He cannot have God for his father
'who has not the Church for his mother.’ The Ark of the
Flood, the Seamless Coat, the one Flock, the one House
untouched in the fall of Jericho, the one House of the Paschal
Lamb, the ‘one mind in the House’ of Israel, the Dove-like
form and nature’ of the Spirit, all are parables illustrating
the inferences which we might draw from the Kingdom of
Nature, and from the Unity of the Godhead, as well as from
the direct injunctions of Christ, S. Paul and S. John*.
The application is immediately pointed. ‘There are now
‘those who withdraw from the Church, and build them alien
‘homes. This must be recognised as the departure of alien
* spirits."
A conception of Separatism is now distinctly obtained.
‘ Heresy itself has its place in relation to unity in the economy
‘of God, It 5 a testing power. It is a pra-judicial scpara-
‘tion.
‘Its promoters first assume preeminence among the
‘unthinking, then holy orders, and then the episcopal pre-
‘rogative, of which the essential character is that it is a given,
"that it is a transmitted powcr, They take Christ's special
‘Blessing on the United “Two or Three” and apply it to their
“own separatist twos and threes*, as if the Lord meant to
“commend not unity but paucity. They corrupt the Font
+ The galllewness attributed to the — of S, Prassede (Jnoerr. Céviit, U, Ry
Dove is brought in from Tertullian, De — νοὶ, 1, p. 421, n0. 937) we bave FALVM-
Bopt. $. lt receives interesting illos. — nvssiwm VL. Compare Mamdef, Act tt.
Orson from contemporary iescripüons. 9ς; 2, ut Iam pigeon-liver'd and lack
In the cemetery of Callistus (de oss,
Rows. δέ, νοὶ t. p. 185, Τὰν. xxvi, —
xxxvili. m. 19) & lady is described as 3. De Üwit, oo, 10-14»
TALYMBA SENE. Fil, and ln the erypt
184 ‘THE UNITY.’ OBLIGATION IS OF ESSENCE OF BELIEF.
“of Baptism'—(mark here the earliest appearance of Cyprian's
great characteristic error)—'so that its water stains rather
‘than cleanses; they erect a rival altar, they offer a rival
‘sacrifice, but it is the sacrifice of jealousy, and so their very
*martyrdoms are wretchedly not crowns but judgments. For
‘while a Lapse from the faith is purged by the Baptism of
' Blood the religion of the Schismatic is spurious in essence,
*not for any narrower cause but that it fails in the first broad
“principle of Christianity, a Loving Union with the brethren.
“Schism is accordingly more fatal than lapsing, and the
*schismatic's death under the persecutor is no martyrdom,
‘only a penalty and a despair."
He comes to passing events and living persons, The
eminent, unnamed, intemperate-tongued, confessor who has
established a separate communion, can be none but Novatian.
‘ Be that confessor who he may, he is not greater, better, dearer
‘to God than Solomon once was. Yet he retained God's grace
‘only so long as he trode God's path...He is a confessor!
'after confession the peril is more, for the foe is more pro-
'voked. He isa confessor! The more should he stand by
* the Gospel, for of the Gospel came his renown....He is acon-
‘fessor! Let him be lowly and calm, let him be modest with
'discipline in action, like the Christ whose confessor he is.
‘He is a confessor—but not so, if afterwards the greatness
‘and worthiness of Christ be evil spoken of through him’!
There is here an undertone of anxiety for the fidelity
of confessors at large, which exactly suits the immediate
position of Roman affairs, mingling with his thankfulness for
the general loyalty*, and echoing the personal appeals already
cited". He proceeds ‘I would indeed, dearest brothers,—I
‘counsel, 1 urge—that, if it be possible, not one of the brothers
‘should perish—that the joyful mother should lock to her
“bosom one united people.’ If the return of wilful leaders be
1 De Unit. ce. 13, 205 9% Dy
5 0. 3».
νιν ITS VIOLATION IS UNBELIEF, 185
hopeless, it is still conceivable to him that the mass of the
misled should see with their own cyes, and extricate them-
selves from personal complications.
Lastly, he restates the nature and obligation of unity and
the causes which underlie disunion.
The unity of the Godhead, of the person of Christ, of the
ideal church, of the faith, must be reproduced in the unity of
the earthly congregation. Agreement is the medium of that
unity. Sections from the living organism must lose vitality.
The unity of humanity within itself and with God is that in
which alone salvation consists’,
* As for the real causes of disunion, its origin is not in the
‘theory of this or that teacher. Loss of unity is the natural
‘outcome of an age of recognised, sanctioned, recommended
‘selfishness—selfishness which saps belief and moral force
‘together, which undermines that faith whereon rest the
‘principles of God-fearing, righteousness, love and hard
“work, and diminishes the awe of things to come*^
This was penetrating doctrine; went to the heart of things,
Which of the churches will master it earliest ?
The suitability of the whole argument to the crisis, and
its effectiveness, need no illustration. The beauty of its dic-
tion is a fit vehicle for the loving holiness and might of its
spirit. It searches alike the deeps of the divine word and of
the human heart. Again and again its persuasions and its
warnings have availed with spirits nobler than the noblest
4 Stripped of its figures this climax
c. 23) contalas the ground of Cyprian's
weal and the essence of his doctrine.
The passage almost defies translation
"unus Deus cxt, et Christus unus, et
una weleris ejus, et fides una, et plebs
[ena] in solidam corporis unitatem con-
condize glatino copulata, Scindi unitas
mom potest, nec corpus unum discidin
‘conpaginis eeparari, divulsis laceratione
visceribus in frusta discerpi, | Quicquid
a matrice discesserit seorsum vivere et
spirare non poterit, substantiam salutis
amittit."
Pies! uma, Martel misled perhaps
by false collation, on the authority of
Tf, 2 mistake for M (Monacensis); and.
of F (Veronensis); neither wk. of any
value on such a point. WGK omit ama
alter Wein
9 e. 96.
186 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."
which have agonized themselves into separations—yes, and
in hours of greater temptation than theirs.
I.
Two Questions on Cyprianic Unity. 1. Was it a theory of
Conviction or of Policy? 2. Does it involve Roman Unity?
Of the Unity of the Catholic Church Cyprian has been
suffered—reverently, I hope, and dutifully, so far as a faithful
purpose is able to represent him—to speak for himself.
Yet the merest outline reveals the defects as well as the
merits of his marycllous book.
The impossibility of harmonizing his theory, as it stands,
with some phenomena of church history is owing to its non-
developement of one essential principle.
The distinction between a Visible and an Invisible Com-
munion upon earth did not present itself to him—still less
the true incorporation with the Visible Church itself of mem-
bers not entirely sound. We are not called upon to dilate
on a topic which has engaged Hooker’, but we must notice
that it is this same deficiency which in his next great crisis
placed Cyprian himself in some danger of separatism.
But there arise two further questions which demand
candid answers.
1. Was Cyprian's view of the Church as one whole with
‘one proper and characteristic government a sincere doctrine ?
Had he received it? Had it been a reality to earlier
Christian thought? Or, was it only the justification of his
practical policy, a tissue of the ingenious suggestions point
by point of a difficult position ?
Ὁ 2. Did this theory of Unity rest on, contain, or logically
1 Καὶ, Ἀμὰν, Ὁ. 101.
ἵν. τ. QU. τι WAS THE THEORY A POLICY ? 187
lead up to a recognition of a central church authority in the
Roman or Petrine see?
The questions are of moment apart from their interest, or
their bearing on Cyprian's honesty and on his foresight.
The first enquires whether Cyprian was an Expounder
or an Inventor of the Oneness of the Church,
The second enquires whether Roman Supremacy was an
outcome of his teaching on that Oneness.
Before the former question can be well answered we must
know whether the word Zec/esia had until now described only
the individual congregation—or, if more, more only by trans-
ference. If that were so, the Cyprianic theory was novel—
not morc than an enginc against Novatiam. If it were not
so, the course of the enquiry would probably reveal the
principle on which Oneness was attributed to an Ideal more
complex or more abstract than that of ‘ parishes”
Now a review of Cyprian's few writings before the Decian
persecution is enough to shew in the first instance that the
idea then conveyed in the word ‘Church’ was not limited to
the individual congregation, either with or without its chief
pastor. That name is from the first used equally and without
distinction of the Congregation, of the Diocese, and of the
Whole Body of the Faithful. It is not the case that the
former senses are earlier in Cyprian than the latter, The
latter sense also appears without effort and without explana-
tion, as familiar to all.
Thus in the First Book of Testimonies, the Church is the ze. |.
New People in contrast with the Jewish. It is the Barren c js
Mother of Old Testament figures, proving more fruitful than
the fruitful wife. It is the Sara, the Rachel, the Hannah,
whose sons are types of the Christ. It is ‘She who hath
borne the Seven Sons,’ for it was to Seven Churches that
St Paul wrote as well as St John. In this one passage two
of the senses stand clearly out.
In the Second Book the ‘Church’ is the ' Spouse of Christ.’ i. 19.
188 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
HV. 3. In the ‘Dress of Virgins, the virgins themselves are *the
glorious fruitbearing of the Mother the Church.’
HV. ae. ‘The Church had been planted and founded upon Peter.’
In these three passages the larger sense alone is possible.
4paes ἴη the roth letter, ‘Happy is our Church’ means specifi-
cally the Church of Carthage; but in the very first letter the
#p.1.1, word is used in both the first and second of the three senses.
a A certain rule of clerical discipline ‘in the Church of the
Lord,’ which had been laid down in a Council of earlier
bishops, is mentioned in the same passage with the direction
that certain offenders are not to be prayed for ‘in the Church,"
that is in the congregation. In the same epistle, Clerks are to
have their time free from private business to serve ‘the Altar
and the Church,” just as in the 3rd (so numbered) it is said
. that the disobedience of Deacons to their Presbyter leads to
the ‘forsaking of the Church and the substitution of a
profane Altar.’
In the 2nd letter the Christian who has to give up his
profession as a Dramatic Tutor is maintained by ‘the pro-
vision’ and ‘at the charges of the Church, seemingly the
local church to which he belongs, but is urged to ‘learn
‘saving things within the Church instead of teaching deathful
“things outside the Church.”
It cannot be said then that the use of this word in
the sense of ‘Congregation’ or * Diocese" is earlier than its
aggregate sense, and it is needless to point out how, in some
of these instances, the eye sees in the Diocese the true image
ind life of the whole.
It is similarly impossible to say that the earliest idea was
that of the A/eles apart from its governing body, It is no
29-63 13 ‘definition’ when Cyprian writes * The Church, that is the
‘plebes established in the Church, faithfully and firmly per-
‘severing in what it has believed.’ It is no definition, for the
word to be defined actually recurs within it, and forms part
IV.1LTHE CHURCH' NOT THE ISOLATED CONGREGATION, 189
of the definition so-called* The question remains, ‘What is
the Church within which the pledes is thus established?’ Is
it an unorganized, undisciplined, unruled aggregate of indi-
viduals? On this the 3rd (so numbered) letter is significant £f 3. 3-
enough when it says that the Apostles constituted the
Deacons ‘to be the ministers of their own Episeopate and of
the Church.’ This imagined ‘Definition’ has in it nothing
which is inconsistent with other words which really belong to
the same period— they are the Church—a Commons united £y.
to a Bishop—a Flock clinging to its Shepherd.”
In the 4th letter, one of his very carliest, we find an Κρ. a
exposition of which the hardness and definiteness is never
again exceeded, ‘If they refuse to be pure in life and habit,
‘they cannot be readmitted to the Church; they cannot count
‘on life and salvation if they will not obey the Bishops. In
‘the old Law he who would not obey the Priest was slain
‘with the temporal sword. To be cast out of the Church now
‘is to be slain with the spiritual sword. For outside the
' Church they cannot live, inasmuch as the House of God is
' One, and no one can be safe but in the Church!
In the 3rd Book of Testimonies we read, ism not to Zu. iii,
“be made, ven if he who departs remain in the one Faith and ^ ὅδ
‘the same Tradition*?
It is then uncritical and unhistorical to suppose that
thought of the aggregate Church rose later on Cyprian's
mind, or grew up gradually out of the idea of the individual
Church. From the first it was impossible not to see literally
each in the other. It is also equally uncritical to think
3 Zp. 63, Yet Ritschl (p.gt pp. τῶι, — this Catena, if anyone would give a date
343) actually proposes, on account of later than Ido to thi» μιά Book, See
the supposed simplicity and absence of p. 23, Bat it is clear that this is a
organization Implict in what he i» — general precept on schism, and has no
pleased to treat as a ‘definition,’ to reference to Novatianiem, and is there-
transpose this epistic and place it — fore earlier than Novetian, Cyprian
among the earliest letters before the — would not have allowed that Novatlan
Decian persecution. remained “in the one Tradition."
? This passage is not necemary to
19O CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."
that there ever was a time when the Church was contem-
plated apart from its Ministering Rulers or they from it.
Each again was essential to the other. With the passage
from the 4th epistle before us, it is impossible to conceive
that the Church appeared to Cyprian to have ever carried
itself on or subsisted without its episcopal order—or ever to
have been anything but a Unity.
We have seen before! what the Bishop was to his own
Congregation and ‘Diocese.’ Was there anything which for
the whole Church Catholic corresponded to the Bishop's
position in respect of his own Diocese? The Cyprianic
answer is absolutely clear:—What the Bishop was to his
own Diocese that the whole united Body of Bishops was to
the whole Church.
When, in his one sarcastic letter—and sarcastic indeed
is—Cyprian writes to Florentius Puppianus, ‘The Church,
‘which is “CATHOLIC, ONE" is not split nor divided but
‘is certainly knit together and compacted by a cement of
‘Bishops fast cleaving each to each other*, this grotesque-
ness may put more forcibly, but does not express more
substantively, the ground which is asswmed in the earliest
epistles.
In the rst epistle— The Church Law forbidding clerics to
engage in secular business ‘had been long ago determined
‘in the Council of the Bishops’; ‘the Bishops, our prede-
'cessors, religiously considering and soundly providing for
‘this, enacted &c.’; ‘that so the decree of the Bishops, reli-
* giously and needfully passed, may be observed by us.’
More palpably still than single phrases can state it, the
Roman presbyters assume, in the 8th letter, that in the
? c. τς viii, sup. una’ without «^ is conclusive; and for
3 Kf. 66. 8 quando ecclesia qui this reason, and because it is assumed
'emtholica una’ est seissa non sit neque (gua ext) as the ground for deduction,
divisa, ted sit utique conexa et coha — I take it to be meant as a quotation
sentium sibi invicem sacerdotum glutive — from the Baptismal Creed.
copulata, The anthority for *catholica
IV. UL, ‘AS BISHOP TO DIOCESE SO BISHOPS TO CHURCH.” 191
absence of both Bishops the two churches have to maintain
the brotherhood of mutual counsel.
In the 3rd (so numbered)—An individual Bishop having
laid before the body of Bishops a complaint against a Deacon
of his own, Cyprian's reply speaks of 'the Apostles, that is
the Bishops and Prelates'—a description of a united college
surely, if words can describe one,
Lastly—to go no further—the great decision is postponed
until all the Bishops of Africa can assemble and make sure
of acting in harmony with the Bishops of Italy.
The College of Bishops, then, is the very form and sub-
stance of the inherited free government, advising by resolu-
tion, commanding by mutual consent, yet not even when
unanimous constraining a single dissentient bishop’, As the
Nicene Fathers did not make but formulated the Nicene
Faith, so the characteristic of Cyprian, his merit as some
venture to think, is the clear outlining and distinct expression
which he gave to the principles which he found in use, and
the stedfastness with which he worked the code and submitted
himself to it. His characteristic reward was the loyalty of
those who felt his loyalty to them,—felt it rendered because
they were Bishops in council, though evidently not his peers
in learning or in policy. 5
If then the First Question be, Did Cyprian create his
theory of government in the Church in order to solve his own
problems ? the answer is that it was far older than Cyprian,
although in him it was lit and fired by that sense of Love
and feeling after Unity which seemed to Augustine the most — |
special characteristic of the man*, "i
+ See Cyprian's speech on opening — of these criticisms that they force bim.
the seventh Council to place the 63rd episile svry eurly (sce
? Rüsch/s Incredible remarks on — p. 189 nJ, because the simplicity of
thie character having been pot on, and its language on tbe Church appears to
assuimed by Cypria as ἃ mere weapon him inconsistent with Cyprian’s later
amd instrument, may be read ia the ori views—only, he ought then also to have
ginal (pp: 89, 106, 109). It is worthy placed the earliest Epistles and the
192 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."
Our Second Question was, Did the theory of Cyprian
demand or lead up to or suggest a single Centre of Church
Government—at Rome or elsewhere ?
Rome could not but be a centre of thought and feeling.
T C was oo! aberety the largest; sichest or strongest clive’ E
was the head of the civilised world, with a practical reality of —
power and fitness unattributable to and unimaginable of any
other head before or since, Was the Christian Church in it
similarly not only the foremost church, but was it the head
of the world-Church which was already in existence ?
We need not stay to enquire whether Cappadocia, Antioch,
Jerusalem could so regard it—but was it such to the West?
was it such even to Carthage? Principalis' Ecclesia it was.
It had a lofty undeniable primacy among all churches which
believed it to be the Foundation of Saint Peter, and to
have in it S. Peters Cathedra, ascended by his successors.
Certainly not less veneration could attach to it than to the
xandria of S. Mark, or the Ephesus of S. John—say
more—but was it of a different kind or order?
Did the theory of Cyprian either in itself, or as embodying
the Western feeling, whatever this was, towards Rome, sug-
gest that this sce was a centre of authority or jurisdiction to
the Church at large? We have scen how each Bishop was
held to be a centre of authority and fountain of jurisdiction
to his diocese. Did the theory of the Oweness of the Church
; involve that there should be One See whose influence em-
braced all other sees analogously? that there should be a
^. Bishop of Bishops?
The only possible answer is that this conception, so far
from being verified or supported by Cyprian's theory, contra-
dicts that theory, has overthrown it in practice, and tends to
obliterate it.
Testimonies (which are mot at all de Units the words from meno to cos
‘simple? in his sense) very late. He — rumpat are a later interpolation.
is compelled further to assert (p. 94) ᾿ Cyp. BA. 59, tas Sce Appendix
without a vestige of authority that in — om Principalis Heclesia, p. 587.
ΤΝ τς. QU.2. DOES IT LEAD UP ΤῸ THE ROMAN THEORY? 193
1, We shall presently sec in detail that in order to adapt ~
even the very language of Cyprian in the passage which they
thought the most favourable to their pretensions, the papal
apologists have framed, and at all hazards, and against evi-
dence full and understood, have stedfastly maintained the
grossest forgery in literature. Without the insertion of their
phrases the passage means something palpably different.
This does not look as if Cyprian here had ever been felt to be
on their side,
2. Does Cyprian's practice exemplify the Roman theory?
We shall see how the subsequent history of his intercourse
with the Roman see exhibits him sometimes, as we should
say, rightly in conflict with it, sometimes wrongly; but in
conflict almost always—exhorting the Roman bishop, re-
buking him or making excuses for him, or assuring him that
he had excommunicated himself by his vain threats of excom-
municating others—obeying him never’,
3. But it may perhaps be said, that great men and saints
are not always consistent, that his practice may have been
inferior to his theory, or even contradictory.
The answer to this is that the very mention of the supre-
macy of one Pontiff, or the universality of one jurisdiction, is
the precise contrary of the Cyprianic statements. The form
of government for the whole Church which these enunciate is
that of a Body—its whole episcopate. This is a Representa-—
tive Body. Its members, appointed for life by free election,
represent each one diocese’, They give their judgment by
suffrages. They have no power of delegation, for Christ
constituted dem to govern,—not to appoint governors. Purity
3 Cy. Epp. 68. αν 3i 7% 34 8
AFirmil.) s, 3, 6, 1, 24, 28
* This is no less the case wherever
E EU ae Kepresen-
‘of Representatives. Appoint:
E Tresbyters is less after ihe
frst model, Presbyters not being pro-
B.
perly representative of their congrega-
tions. Cooption by other Rishops is
still less satisfactory, while the only
intolerable plan is that of their ap-
i by one saperior of their
pointment
own onler appointed by a few of
themselres.
13
194 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."
of conduct was essential to the continuance of any one of them
in his authority’, No minority among them could be over-
borne by a majority, in a matter of administration, even
though it were so grave a question as that of Rebaptism. If
all but one voted one way, that one could not be overruled in
the direction of his diocese. 'These considerations, dear
* brother, writes Cyprian in the name of his sixth Council, ‘we
“bring home to your conscience out of regard to the Office
‘we hold in common and to the simple love we bear you.
‘We believe that you too, from the reality of your religious
‘feeling and faith, approve what is religious as well as true.
“Nevertheless we know there are those who cannot readily
‘part with principles once imbibed, or easily alter a view
“of their own, but who, without hurting the bond of peace
'and concord between colleagues, hold to special practices
“once adopted among them—and herein we do no violence
‘to anyone and impose no law, For in the administration of
‘the Church each several prelate has the free discretion of his
‘own will—having to account to the Lord for his action*'
The prelate who is thus allowed the same freedom as the
rest of his order in governing his own diocese is Stephanus,
Bishop of Rome. No protest of his in answer claimed the
right to direct all or any of the rest.
‘It remains for us to deliver each our judgment on the
‘particular question,’ so said Cyprian, opening the seventh
of his Councils, ‘without judging any, without removing
‘any from our communion, whose judgment may differ from
‘our own, None of us constitutes himself a bishop over
‘bishops, or makes it imperative for his colleagues to obey
‘him, through any despotic awe, inasmuch as every bishop
'by leave of his freedom and office, has a free scope of
Ὁ ER. 61. 3 "Propter quod plebs ipsa maxime habeat potestatem vel
obsepuens preceptis dominieis et Deum — eligendi dignos sacerdotes vel indignos
metuens a 4«crafere frwjesile ec. epis- recusandi’ Cf, Ef. 68. 3,
copo) zefarare se debet, mec sead sacri- — ? Ej 7. 3.
Jegi sacerdotis sserificia miscere, quando
IV.IL THECYPRIANIC AND ROMAN THEORIES CONTRARIES. 195
*his own, and can no more be judged of another than he
*can himself judge another. We must all alike await the
‘judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone by Himself
*hath the office (ofestas) of promoting us in the govern-
*ment of His Church, and of judging our course of action'*
4 In what then consisted in effect the unity of a body
so constituted? It was a practical unity, a moral unity, held
together by its own sense of unity, by ‘the cement of mutual
concord’,’ As problems arose they were to consider them
cach by itself. The first thing was that they should, with as
deliberate consultation as could be had, state their several
opinions without favour or fear.
If we consider what great effects were produced, what far-
reaching and enduring results were secured, through the mere
exercise and utterance of this moral, or spiritual, judgment,
by men whose divine commission was simply to use this, and
to express this, we may perhaps think that an incessant
complaining of the unwillingness of imperial assemblies to
discuss, decide and give effect to church measures, fs at
least not primitively church-like. The periods in which
the Church has worked its will upon us through civil rule are
not times of impressive spirituality. The immeasurably
higher enthusiasm and stronger effectiveness which has at-
tended its moral judgments under governments as hostile, or
as surly, or as indifferent as mere politicians could wish
governments to be towards really Christian matters, might
encourage the faith of modern churchmen in the value of
their onc undisputed prerogative.
A bishop could not then resist their united voice without
hardihood, but if he did, he was unassailable unless vicious-
ness or false doctrine were patent in his life or teaching. In
1 PIL. Come, Carth, Prafat.Cypriani. τὸ often to shew the simply moral force
3 δ). 68, y An important pasage οἵ its action—which ἦν what it really
ami often quoted to evince the consti» shews
tutional character of the body, but not
13-τῷ
|
196 CYPRIAN 'OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,
that case the allegiance of his flock was to be withdrawn.
He was to be regarded (says the African primate, with astrong
local colouring) as a brigand chief who had got possession
of a caravanserai',
The divine reality of such their unity had been taught
typically in the respective charges of the Lord to Peter and
to the Twelve* The authority and power committed is the
same to each several apostle, But for the sake of shewing
(such is Cyprian's interpretation) that many apostles did not
make many churches, but one only, therefore the first decla-
ration of the foundation of a universal Church is couched
in language addressed to one only—S. Peter. For that one
occasion the words are to one, but the meaning is for ever
to all.
As nothing limited it in space, but the authority belonged
to all the apostles, wherever they went, so in time also, after
they were departed, nothing limited that authority to Peter's
successors among the successors of them all Though the
charge to Peter appears among the earliest of Cyprian's
Christian ideas’, as does also the obedience due to bishops*,
yet Peter's successors are nowhere mentioned or hinted at by
Cyprian as necessary to the Church's Unity’. But the suc-
cessors of the other Apostles are. And of them it is said that
the power given by Christ to them, in equal measure with
S. Peter, passed on to the churches which they established,
and to the bishops who everywhere succeeded them’,
A headship attributed to the successors of one among
them would simply ruin at once the whole theory of the
A Eg. 68. 3. priest.
? Sce Catena of passages on the — ^ This Ritschl himself confesses. Tr
Unity from Peter, infra p. 197. will be understood that he plays the
3 De Habitu Virgg. 10. dangerous game of maintaining presby-
4 Bf. 4 4 wbere the spiritual sword — terianism against episeopacy, by trying
is described to beas deadly to the spirit to saddle Cyprus episcopacy with
as the material sword was to the life of — the papacy as its necessary deduction.
any who disobeyed the ancient high ὀ δ EA, 78, 46, see Catena below.
IV.IL THE ΟΥ̓ΡΕΙΑΝΊΟ AND ROMAN THEORIES CONTRARIES. 197
unity and of the authority which subsisted in the cafioswm
corpus sacerdotum—the episcopatus unus, episcoporum multorum
concordi mumerositate diffusus, And this is Cyprian's theory. |
5. Yet again, as that Body might not rule any one^-
Bishop, it follows @ ferfieri that any one Bishop could not
tule that Body. It is plain that such pretension could never
be sct up without violating the principle and essence of
Cyprian's theory. This theory could not even coexist with
the theory of a dominant centre. The two views are mut
exclusive.
A singular fate overtook two strong sentences of the carly
Latin fathers, It is comprehensible how the sentence of
Cyprian could be vivisected and injected with corruption till,
as we find it, it seemed to yield ἃ sense contrary to τς
original force, and to the context, and to the whole scheme
of the treatise, and to the leading idea of its author, But,
that Tertullian’s scornful parody of some Bishop of Rome's
——' Pontifex scilicet maximus, quod est episcopus
episcopormm, edicif'/—should have worked round into be.
coming the actual title and style of his successor, exhibits a
feat of that brilliant imagination which even itself could
never have realised.
Catena of Cyfriamic passages on the Unity signified in the Charge to Peter.
[a, 248. Petrus etiam cui oves suas Dominus pascendas tuendasque
commendat, super quem posuit et fundavit ecclesiam, aurem
quidem et argentum sibi esse negat...
A rhetorical contrast of the facts in Matt. xvi. and Acts iii, not by itself
touchiny the question of Unity.)
4.D,251, Probatio est ad fidem facilis compendio veritatis Loquitur
Dominus ad Petrum: ‘ego tibi dico" inquit ‘quia tu es Petrus
*et super istam petram zedificabo ecclesiam mcam, et porte
"inferorum non vincent eam. Dabo tibi claves regni celorum :
3 qa Cypran this thought and these ΟἹ, £j. 68. 3.
words mre in perennial flow. But A — * Tert le Pudicit. t.
dj. cà ls a strong condensed chapter.
198 CATENA FROM CYPRIAN ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH
Lens qut ipssetio per; vertens: erent Vents ot ἐδ παῖδ
solveris soper terram erunt soluta et in celis."
slim ab unitate proficiscitur, td ecclesia Christi wma monzirefur.
Whaterer may be the valac of the argument or illustration, there can in
its genuine shape be no doubt as to the meaning of the passage. The Apostles
are all made equal in honour and power by our Lewi's commission. Simply to
declare the unity of His Chorch, He, the first time that He gives that commission,
Gives it to one. Afterwards he repeats the same commission (as Cyprian under-
Mood it) to all. ‘The origo, exerulinm, of unity starts (prafictscitur) from one as αὶ
manifestation or demonstration (mandfestarct, monstretur) of unity.
"The same teaching identically appears, with greater or less compression, bat
with no variation of idea, in all other references to whomsoever addressed : as follows
AD,250. (Plebi unéverse), Deus unuscst, et Christus unus et saa ecclesia
εἰ cathedra una super Petrum Domini voce fundata,
"The unity is here inferred from the Lend’ voice speaking to Peter alone, as set
forth in the De nitate published the year after at the same place.
3 AD.251. (Cornelio Fratri). Hoc enim vel maxime, frater, et laboramus et
laborare
Ep a.
Efe ag Be
Eh 9-7
debemus ut unitate a Domino οἱ per apostolos nobis
successoribus traditam, [not vobis nor per Petrum successoribus,
but to the bishops as suceceding to that equal authority of
the apostles] quantum possumus i obtinere curemus, et quod in
nobis est palabundas et errantes oves.../yr es colligamus.
won (Cornelio Fratri). Communication
ecclesia unitatem pariter et caritate
ettatem.]
AD252. (Antonfano Fratri) The sec of Rome is Fabiani locus,. docus
Petri et gradus RB oculos
wn (Cornelio Fratri.
ino ἡ
gro
«cesis voce respondens ait, ‘Domine, ad quem imus?"
set ad Petri cathedram atque ad ecclesiam principalem unde
at. (Florentio cul ot Puppiano Fratri) On same pastage as Ef. 59. 7
‘ad quem ibimus &c.! loquitur illic Petrus super quem sdifi-
cata fuerat ecclesia, ecelesiz momine docens.
AS TYPIFIED IN THE CHARGE TO S. PETER 199
Ti 8. AD-255.. (Quinto Fratri, referred to in Ef. 72 Stephano fratri Cyprian
here shows what deduction is not to be drawn from the commission of our Lord.
Nam nec Petras, quem primum Dominus elegit et super quem
sedificavit ecclesiam suam, cum secum Paulus disceptaret, vin-
dlicavitsibialiquid insolenter aut adroganter adsumpsitut diceret.
st frimatum tenere ct obemferari a novellix et posteris sibé
potius oportere.,..
Fe, Peter did mot draw ὡς τί τατον darsi ee eese anit
tion to be the ‘origo' or ' exordium" of unity.
72: T. AD. 256. (ubeiame Frafri. Manifestum est autem ubi et per guas
remissa peccatorum dari possit, quae in baptismo scilicet
datur Nam Peiro primum Deminus, super quem zdificavit.
ecclesiam, et wade wmitaléy originent instituit ot ostendit,
potestatem istam dedit ut id solveretur [in terris] quod ille
solvissct, οἱ post sesurrectionem quoque ad apertolor loquitur.
dicens ‘sicut misit me pater et ego mitto vos’ hoc cum
dixisset, inspiravit et ait //A; *accipite spiritum sanctum, si
cujus remiseritis peccata..." unde intellegimus non nisi In
ecclesiae fraestis et evangelica lege ac dominica ordinatione
Sundatis licere baptizare...
In manner precisely parallel to the De Üiitate he infers that what was first sald
ἴο one in token of unity was afterwards said to all as their charter of authority—
‘and to nono but them.
T5- 16. A.D. 256. (Firmilianus Cypriano Fratri), Qualis vero error sit et quanta
creeitas ejus qui remissionem peccatorum dicit apud synagogas
hiereticorum dari posse, nec permanet in /imdamvenio unius
ecclesia, quar semel a Christo super
insuflarit Christus dicens ‘accipite spiritum sanctum, si
potestas ergo peccatorum remittendorum apostolis
data est εἰ ecclerir quer illi a Christo missi constituerunt et.
episcopie qui tis ordinations vicaria succetterunt,
Here similarly Firmillan (who as is well knowa echoes Cyprian to the letter)
holds the voice to Peter to be the token of unity, and the powers to be shared. by
the apostles, the churches and the successive bishops all alike.
17. AD. 256, ...banc tam apertam et manifestam Stephani stultitiam quod
qui sic de episcopatus sui loco gloriatur ct se successionem.
Petri tenere contendit, super quem fundamenta ecclesia collo-
«ata sunt, multas alias petras inducat et ecclesiarum multarum.
nova sdificin constituat, dum esse illic baptisma sua auc-
toritate defendit,
Le. The present bishop of Rome, Stephanns, who so prides himself on his
suctemion, sscrifices the prerogative of himself and all other true bishops by
recognising baptism external to the church and them.
200 CYPRIAN *OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."
In.
The Appeal of tke modern Church of Rome to Cyprion in TA
Unity of the Catholic Church'—by way of Interpolation,
Ζ Notwithstanding its somewhat technical character, I can-
A not but present this strange matter as part of the continuous
narrative of Cyprian's ‘Life and Work.’ The conception of
his formative influence on the Church of Christ would be at
once exaggerated and incomplete without some account taken
of an immense power claimed in his name, and exercised
rij through the shadow of his name, by men and societies who
| have no act or real word of his to shew on their side.
In the year 1682 the Gallican Church held that celebrated
assembly which affirmed their ancient Liberties, and described
in The Four Articles the limits of papal authority, Yet, as
Bossuet in the most cloquent perhaps of his harangues had
discoursed to them, ‘The object of that assembly was Peace!
—Peace with Innocent the Eleventh. 'Conserver l'Unité*
was the guiding thought of Bossuet's life. Their Synodical
Letter’ therefore, addressed to the whole French hierarchy,
prefaced its protest against that pontiff’s usurpations with
a confession of their duty to his See. That duty was estab-
lished and acknowledged by words borrowed from (
fourth chapter on Unity—the printed text.
— Itis difficult to exaggerate the effect of those words even
amid the universal indignation which then possessed court,
Church and people. The authority of that primaval voice
was once more as conclusive as it had now been for some
centuries. Tt was alleged as conclusive, and was alleged alone.
And yet the great orator of Meaux, amid his own array
? Sermon préché | o Nov. 1681) à.— ? Lettre ἃς l'assemblée du Clergé de
Vouverture de l'assemblée générale du — France, tenue en 1682,à tous les Prélnis
Clergé de France, 'Sur l'Unité de ἐς I'figlise Gallicane. Dupin, Lidertés
VÉglise." de P Eglise Gallicone (1860).
IV. πε. THE ROMAN APPEAL TO THE BOOK. 201
of inconclusive authorities, forbore to marshal this capital and
decisive text.
That very year there appeared the new English edition
from which that text was omitted.
"The words are spurious. The history of their interpola-
tion may be distinctly traced even now, and it is as singular
as their controversial importance has been unmeasured. It is
a history which well may make it the most interesting of
literary forgeries, But the Ultramontane is still unconvinced,
and as he may long remain so, we lay the evidence before
others,
The eloquent Mgr. Freppel, Bishop of Angers, late Pro-
fessor at the Sorbonne,—in which capacity he delivered his
course of lectures on Saint Cyprian, repeats the contention
that the giving of the keys to Peter and the charge to feed
the flock is ‘the charter of investiture of the papacy,’ and in
support of it asks leave ‘to place under our eyes this remark-
able passage’ of Cyprian. ‘Whatever difficulty criticism
‘may raise on the authenticity of such or such a word in
‘particular’ does not affect the argument. ‘We have a right
‘to maintain a reading which has such numerous and such
*antient testimonies for itself‘!
1 quote this merely as a clear statement of the position
which Romish argument has taken and still takes as to the
passage and as to its value as it stands’. It is casy to allege
that ‘Cyprian only repeats here what he says so many times
elsewhere,’ but the tenacity with which this place is reprinted
and repeated betokens well enough the misgiving as to the
other passages being capable of enduring the required mean-
ing without the comment of this fabrication*.
1S. Cyprien. Par M. PAbDE Frep-
pel, Prof. ἃ la Facclié de Théologie de
Paris 1865 (Cours falt ἃ la. Sorbonne),
pp. 222—391
2 Sec alo. Prof. Huster, S.J. 55.
uirum Ojnxe. 1. p. 7.
202 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!
The ‘numerous and ancient testimonies’ consist of (1)
the editions which contain the passages, and the mamuseripts on
which they are supposed to rest. (2) Citations of the passage.
Our simplest method is to give the passage in full, exactly
as this author reproduces it (as he says) from ‘the editions
of Manutius (1563) (who first printed it), De Paméle (1568),
Rigault (1648), Dom Maran (1726)'.
“ The Lord saith unto Peter, I say unto thee that thou
art Peter,and upon this rock will 1 build my Church, and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give
unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and what-
soever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven? Amd fo the same (apostle) He says after His re-
surrection ' Feed my sheep” He builds His Church upon that
one, and to him entrusts His sheep to be fed, And although
after His resurrection He assigns equal power to all His
apostles, and says ‘As the Father sent me even so send
I you, receive ye the Holy Ghost; who: coq sins ye
remit they shall be remitted unto
sins ye retain they shall be retained,’ nevertheless in
order to make the unity manifest, He established ome
Chair, and by His own authority appointed the origin of
that same unity beginning from one, Certainly the rest
of the apostles were that which Peter a/so was, endued
with equal partnership both of honour and office,
but the pusrun sets out from. “uni
the margins, and the whole of this
ao appears. So of the two Pembroke ΟἹ led,
M5. one has the passage scored with a — words. perm one chair apd,
ΙΝ. τη, THE ROMAN INTERPOLATIONS. 203
shown, to be fed by all the apostles with one-hearted accord,
that one Church of Christ may be pointed out. It is this
one Church which the Holy Spirit in the Person of the
Lord speaks of in the Song of Songs, saying *My dove
is one, my perfect onc, one is she to hcr mother, clect to
her who brought her forth. He that holds not this unity
of the Church, does he believe that he holds the faith?
He who strives and rebels against the Church, Ae wo
deserts the Chair of Peter on which the Church was founded,
does he trust that he is in the Church? Since the blessed
Apostle Paul also... :
The words in italics admittedly must be from the pen of
one who taught the cardinal doctrine of the Roman see. If
Cyprian wrote them he held that doctrine. There is no dis-
guising the fact. Onofrio Panvinio* for instance in his grea!
treatise on the Primacy of Peter places this whole passage’
from Cyprian ‘foremost of the holy Fathers’ next after his
citations of Scripture, and the words we have printed in italics
he has anticipated us by printing in capitals as the crucial and
decisive ones.
But the reader will observe that, separated from the
italicised words, the passage runs smooth and the doctrine
is a different onc. It is the doctrine of a catholicity perfect
in unity without hint of Petrine or of any primacy. As we
have already seen, it exhibits a unity indicated (such is the
special argument of the passage) by Christ's committing one
and the same charge, first to one and then to all of the
apostles as peers or equals of that one.
Now the indictment we prefer is that every italicised word
is a forgery; and a forgery deliberately for three centuries
past forced by papal authority in the tecth of evidence upon
editors and printers who were at its mercy. The recent
1 See Latin Text in Appendic(p. syo) — et Aportalice seis prtertate, pp. 3, 9.
Verovir. £589.
204 CYPRIAN 'OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
labour of Hartel reveals a similar process at work long be-
fore upon the manuscripts. The corruptions were always
patent, but now we can actually watch the agents.
Tf proven, the interest of our tale s beyond that of literary
curiosity or even literary morality. Dukes and Cardinals,
Prelates and Masters of the Palace prevailed over broken-
hearted scholars, It was a Battle of the Standard, fought
that a forgery might not be (as one of the defenders expressed
it) ‘ravi A l'Église" All that energy, all that diplomacy,
—the very tone of this moment—are the best witnesses
to the value of the Protestant conviction that, although all
Cyprian would have to be read by the light of those phrases
could they be saved, Cyprian without them is an irrefragable
witness against those assumptions. But our business is now
with the literary evidence. The reader may point the moral.
We will take the manuscript history of the passage first.
The codices of Cyprian’ de Unitate which are older than
the tenth century are as follows:
The Seguier manuscript at Paris; so styled from its first
known possessor the great Chancellor, from whom it passed to
the Prince Bishop Coislin of Metz, thence to the Abbey of
S. Germain des Prés by his gift, thence after the fire of 1793
to the Library of Paris, where it is now, It is a most
precious volume of the Sixth or the Seventh century pre-
serving the most genuine readings and oldest forms of words,
and it is distinguished in collations as S.
The Verona Codex of the Sixth or Seventh century (V),
* an uncial MS. which was given to Charles Borromeo by the
canons of Verona, used by Latinius in preparing his notes for
the edition of Manutius, and further known to us by his
collations, copies of which were in the hands of Baluze and
Rigault, and another copy is extant at Góttingen, A some-
what inaccurate collation was also made by R. Rigby for
Bp. Fell, Latinius was certain that it was of the Sixth century.
? Hartel, Pref. ii, iii, v., ἔχιν xil., xiv., xix., xxii. xxili., boo, bexxiv.
IV. Il, THE INTERPOLATIONS AND THE MANUSCRIPTS. 205
The Codex Beneventanus (called also Neapolitanus) was
one of the best manuscripts’, We are acquainted with it
from the collations made by Ant. Agostino Bishop of Alifi and.
used by Rigault, and those made by Rigby for Bishop Fell.
The MS, of Würzburg (W) of the Eighth or Ninth century,
ascribed by some to the Seventh,
The codices Reginensis 116 (R) and San Gallensis 89 (6),
both of the Ninth,
Tn not one of these manuscripts have the italicised words
appeared in any shape.
Of Trecensis (Q) of the Eighth or Ninth Century, and of
Monacensis (M) of the Ninth, we will speak presently.
The great scholar Latino Latini, Canon of Viterbo, who
died at the age of 80 in 1593, tells us he had seen seven
manuscripts (integros) of Cyprian in the Vatican in which all
these words were wanting*.
Baluze* says that he had himself seen twenty-seven
manuscripts without them.
Bishop Fell used four English codices of which nonc
have a trace of our italics*; and besides these four English
manuscripts (to which we add a Pembroke codex missed
by him") all have only the additional Post-Resurrection|
Charge to St Peter, (a mere parallel text,) without any word at
all about the Chair, the Primacy of Peter, the Unity of Peter,
or the desertion of the Church founded on Peter. These’
manuscripts are all of the tenth century or later.
Baluze* says that the German manuscripts of the time of
* Hartel, pp. catis.
? Latitto Latinl, Ziilíerheca. Sacra. ei
Profana a D. Macro (Magri), Rome
1672, Ρ. 179. |. 2, Lambeth, Lincoln,
ῃ Opere. Bahue. Paris, Ν. C. αν and Fem. 2. (Fell's readings
1736, p. 545. Comm, in loc. cf Vous" ws. hive mot been re-
ὁ Vi Bod. 5. Ebor, New College 2, vised.)
Sarum. Inspieofthee Fell kept the © Cyriamí Ofers. Pari, 1726, p.
Bidar poe reuiédion erg. HE
206 CYPRIAN 'OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."
Venericus bishop of Vercelli! seem not to have had these
words; nor are they found in any of the earlier editions (or
their numerous reprints) of Cyprian which appeared before
that of Manutius in 1563 and which represent to us many
manuscripts which have long disappeared".
‘We must now’ see what authority there is in favour of
the italics against this mass of negative evidence,
In 1568 Jacques De Paméle, canon of Bruges, brought out
his Cyprian. Ignorant of the facts and of Latini's griefs (of
which we shall presently speak), he accepted Manutius"
edition as representing the famous Verona manuscript. But
as Latini hinted *he had no nose’; he was absurd enough
to think the spurious tract ‘on Dice-players’ was in
Cyprian's style, and careless enough to say that its Latin
texts were in Cyprianic form. He surrendered himself to
a manuscript! belonging to the abbey of Cambron' in
Hainault, which was more interpolated throughout than
any known copy. He thought it confirmed the Verona
reading.
The corruption according to Baluze was found also in
an ancient manuscript of Marcello C. i, afterwards Pope
Marcellus IL, and this one was used by Ὁ 1
It was found in a certain Bavarlan manuscript which Bishop
Fell knew only through Gretser', who assures us it was
* AD, 10;8—1082. Gams, Serie him (Zipp. t. ps 309), admires the con-
Episcoporum, p. 815. re should see ancient
2 Very inaccurate accounts of these auth formam a nativa de-
editions are prefixed to the cditions of ἘΞ “were edited as his
Baluzius by Maran and of Fell, and re-
peated in the Oxford translation of Cy-
prian, p» 1st (Library of the Fathers).
‘Martel has examined and given a careful
account of them in his * Proefatio.”
mius, in one of his peg letters to
TV. HI. THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE OF THE FORGERIES. 207
of ‘the highest stamp.’ We shall however presently know
more about it if the reader will only bear in mind that this
was evidently the Munich manuscript, —Monacensis or M.
The manuscripts which have this passage have it with
all the varieties, omissions, and transpositions which uni-
yersally indicate corruption of text. The oldest which has
additions like those in Manutius is one of the tenth century.
It belonged to Isaac Voss and is called h: it is copied
partly from T, and partly from interpolated manuscripts’.
But we may pass it over as we shall meet the corruption
higher up the stream. Similarly we need not here concern
ourselves about a manuscript of the fifteenth century in the
Bodleian* which has a like tale to tell.
But there is one* in the Bodleian of the eleventh, or
perhaps the tenth century, which exhibits well the most
peculiar and interesting phenomenon connected with the
manuscripts. There once existed a manuscript of Cyprian
of which three others now extant belonging to the tenth
and earlier centuries are copies These three are the
Troyes Codex,—Trecensis, or Q, of the eighth or ninth
century; the Munich codex,—Monacensis, or M, of the
ninth; and the Bodleian just named, of the tenth or eleventh.
‘These three are all copied from copies of one lost manuscript
which we may call the Archetype’.
Aaretices «t moxies. (Ingoldstadt, 1603, Monacentit, M, are independent copies
Lib, ti, ©. 7, p.303) He says he foll of onecopy of thelost Archetype(Hartel,
"upon this codex ‘in Buyariea bibliotheea Ρ, xxxv), Our Bodleian, which is not
—membraeaceum, optima note. See — described by Hartel, is not copied from
Appendix, p. $49, κε to itx readings.
Ὁ Hartel, p.xi. Fe says "the sume
additions! pp. xi. and xii. n. but
it is worse than Manutius in reading
“this unity of Peter's” instead of "(δῖ
‘unity of the Chareh."
3 Fall's * Bod. 3.”
* Fall's “Bod. 4,’ ied or sith
cent.
* The Codex Trecensic, Q, and
208 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."
Now it seems almost incredible but it is true that
these manuscripts should reveal so minutely as they do
the manipulation practised on their forefather. Codices M
and Q give the interpolated passage in full, and having
come to the end of it with its four inserted clauses they
proceed without stop or stay to give the genuine passage
without any interpolations at all. First comes the doctored
recension which the scribe of the Archetype was intended,
by the person who directed him, to substitute for the
original. This remodelled paragraph was finished up with
an emphatic repetition of the keyword with which it
began—' He built His Church upon One*' But the thrice-
fortunate copier supposed this final repeated keyword to
be the cue in the original from which he was to go
on. Accordingly having copied out his interpolated pattern
schedule he went on from those words in the genuine
manuscript before him, and. wrote out in his simplicity the
genuine passage which began with them". The Bodleian
Codex gives first three interpolated clauses only but in
its repetition of the whole passage inserts the fourth inter-
polation.
If any one asks, How copyists could so flagrantly go on
giving a genuine and an interpolated text on the same page,
we can only be thankful to the fatuous or cynical fidelity
which wrote out what was before it. Many and inferior
manuscripts give only the corrupt form, But the double
form went on being copied for a long time. For example,
the third Bodleian Ms. of Fell, as we have mentioned, has
still the duplicate form* as late as the fifteenth century,—
and what is still more remarkable the Jesuit theologian
original of the Bodleian <X a>. It words ‘That the Church of Christ may
is coordinate with Hartel’s <X>and — be shewn as one,’
XY». ? Bee Apfemd, p. 549. Hartel,
? "Super unum addiformit ecclesiam, — Pref. pp. x. xi. xllil, notes pp. 213,
just a others have similarly empha- 213.
‘sized by cedoubling them the sbniar — * Dod. 3, Land Misc. ary,
IV.HL INTERPOLATIONS FORCED ON MANUTIUS' TEXT. 209
Gretser copies it out double word for word in triumphant
fury to demolish Thomas James the ‘English Calvinian, to
prove as he says that ' papistz: have seen manuscripts‘!
Thus if there never was a viler fraud than the inventor's,
there was never a worse nemesis than the honest obtuseness
of his instrument.
We must now enquire how interpolations against which
the manuscripts bore such conclusive evidence came to be
embodied for the first time in the edition of Paulus Manutius
in 1563 after all earlier editions and reprints had escaped
them*.
The son of the great Aldus had been two years settled in
Rome, loaded with every kindness, honour, and privilege; his
failing health spared by a staff of able correctors who were
assigned to him for the great undertaking of the new Papal
press in Greek, Latin and the Vernacular. Cyprian was the
first author issued from that press, Charles Borromeo had
been truly anxious for the restoration of the text of Cyprian
to its primitive integrity. The Verona manuscript had been
procured by him for the purpose.
The editing of the text was committed to Latino Latini,
Besides ‘collecting with many watchings and labours’ an
illustrative commentary on obscure passages, he made
accurate collations and prepared a brief critical commentary
on the readings*. In one of his private letters‘ he complains
that after the most conscientious labour upon the text he
found that, while passing through the press, not only were
Biblical quotations altered to conformity with the Vulgate,
but besides, ‘whether it was at the mere pleasure of certain
* Gretier, Ac p. sos (Tngoldatade
1663).
3 Hartel names to edd., and there
were at least a0, including reprints of
Erasmus.
^ Besides the Verona and Benevento
Aor Naples) codex, Hartel, p. box,
ascertains that he had of our extant
‘ones Vat. (φ) n. 199 and prob. Mona-
consis (4).
* Ad And Masium (Mac) 1h p.
199 (Hartel, p. 34 ch p. lux], and
Life of Latini prefixed to the Aiddie-
νων
210 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
“persons or of set design, he knew not, some passages were
‘ retained contrary to the evidence of the manuscripts, and even
‘ some additions made’ Under these circumstances he would
not allow his name to be connected with the edition, ‘deeming
‘it no light crime to conceal the truth or to alter the smallest
‘letter,’ and withdrew his annotations. In the Bibliotheca Sacra
et Profana, or collected notes of the same critic’, he mentions
three epistles of Cyprian first discovered by himself in the
MS, then at Saint Salvadore's at Bologna, and in two
Vatican MSS, of which epistles the arrogant 8th letter from
the Roman Clergy which Cyprian treats contemptuously was
one. These he says the superior authorities" would not allow
to be published ‘un-emended? and accordingly the 8th
epistle does not appear at all in that edition. They refused
also to allow the anti-Roman epistle of Firmilian to be
‘brought forth out of darkness ’—but in this Latini seems to
have acquiesced, ‘detesting the man's petulance*! Upon a
remark of Pamelius* censuring a certain reading of Manutius
a few lines forward in the De Unitate, he observes ‘this
‘is one of the alterations which were made neither by me, nor
‘by Manutius, but by one who had permission to pervert,
‘to add, to cut out, or to corrupt whatever he would, against
‘my will?
That our present interpolations were among this per-
sonage's manipulations is clear from Latini’s statement on
the same page, that he sad sever seen these in any manu-
script excep? ‘in a fragment very recently written at Bologna,
'—a small book containing only a few treatises of Cyprian,
*belonging to Vianesius de Albergatis, —and also in a com-
‘plete copy at Bologna (from which the said fragment was
* copied) which was itself also written in a recent hand.’
There is in the Library at Góttingen* a copy (brought
1 Bible Su, et Prof p» r74b. 4 Pamel, Cyr. (Antv. 1868), p.
* Qul preeermnt, 1. e. 2622, ποῖ 4. B... ef P», p. 1794
B.S. at Py pe gy bs ? Hartel, p. xi. and p. 213 n,
IV. tL. INTERPOLATIONS FORCED ON MANUTIUS' TEXT. 211
from Venice) of the edition of Manutius, with notes written on
its margin. Those notes are copies of manuscript notes by
Latini, One of these notes says upon this place, * These
“words were added out of a single manuscript belonging to
*Virosius (a clerical error for Vianesius) of Bologna, now in
“the Vatican, by P. Gabriel the Paenitentiary with the consent
“of the Master of the Sacred Palace.’ So close a chain of
evidence leaves no doubt as to the time, manner and per-
formers of the interpolation.
The most competent editor of his age and country felt
compelled to resign his work because he was powerless to
prevent the Theologues of the Vatican from remodelling his
text. But we are not quite at the end of this strange story.
In the Council of Trent in the year 1563 the debate was at
its height ‘whether Bishops have their powers ef Divine right
or of Papal right! The ambiguous canon proposed from
Rome, that bishops hold the principal place dependent on
the pope, was under discussion with a view to substituting
for it, chicf under the pope but not dependent. Quotations
from Cyprian were rife, About the 20th of June, Carlo
Visconti, Bp. of Ventimiglia, the pope's secret minister at
Trent, and his spy upon his legates, an experienced diplo-
matist and ‘man of exact judgment, reccived letters from
Rome telling him that the new Cyprian had appeared, with
the passages which the correctors had expunged from the De
Unitate, The possible effect on the Council itself was serious.
Visconti went straight to Agostino, now bishop of Lerida, a
great lawyer, diplomatist and antiquarian, who had received
the same intelligence and with it a copy of the new book. He
could tell Visconti that Latini himself had many days back
communicated the facts to Cardinal Hosio (Osius); facts which.
he thoroughly understood, for it was he who had years before
3 De jure divine, de jure pontificio. — " Visconti wrote ‘de Authoritate."
Sec Sarpi, Books vi, Vil. esp. vH. s. — As apt slip.
14—2
212 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!
made the collation of the Benevento manuscript. The Agent
told the one Legate whom the pope trusted there, Cardinal
Simoneta, and on June 22nd advised the Vatican that ‘before
such an opinion got established" as that the correctors had
been overruled, ‘they should find means to remove it; which
“could be done by giving authority to these words which had
“been published, authenticating them with the testimony and
‘approbation of persons who had seen and confronted the
' antient codices *"
So writes one who had just recorded the ‘testimony’ of
the persons who had 'confronted' the antient codices, —the
verdict of the correctors.
Even in 1563 it was a little late for such measures, But
the note actually attached to the volume is now full of
meaning* It ends thus, ‘It is not improper if pious and
‘catholic interpretations and true senses be applied to the
‘writings of the old fathers in order to preserve always the
‘unity of the Church which Cyprian in his writings had most
‘at heart, Otherwise no end to he
must have HR mysterious to.
Their appearance
remarkable,
Baluze had rejected them o
he states with utmost clearness’
1 Epp. Car. Vicecomitis, 1. alv. al
Card, Borromeo [Balure, Miscell. tI.
E 472 (Mansi), Luce 1761—1764]. Sec -
A Visconti's Letter, p. £44-
same Appendix, p. 545+
? His witnesses being (as we have
indicated) the Seguierian and Veronese
IV.1L INTERPOLATIONS FORCED ON BENEDICTINE TEXT. 213
sheets without them. His death in 1718 interrupted the work
which had been committed by order of the Regent Duke
of Orleans to the Royal Press. In 1724 it was resumed for
completion by the Benedictines of S. Maur at the request
of'Typographim Regia Przfectus and entrusted to Dom
Prudent Maran, Baluze had formerly been banished by
Louis XIV. and his property confiscated, for publishing
in his History of the House of Auvergne fragments of a
cartulary and an obituary which shewed the descent of
the Cardinal de Bovillon from a sovereign house in France'.
He had been placed in the Index by the court of Rome on
account of his Lives of the Popes at Avignon, And now
his genuine text of this passage in Cyprian was assailed
by J. du Mabaret, Professor in the seminary at Angers, in
a dissertation" which he submitted to Cardinal Fleury, now
Minister, to the dominant Jesuits, and others in the interest
of the holy see. The minister named a commission to
decide the critical question, It was understood that a diffi
culty with the court of Rome would follow the omission of
the passages from an edition issued under the authority of the
ministry. It was decided to restore them. The prince of
courtiers, the Duc d'Antin, of whom it was said that he acted
flatteries which others spoke, was charged with the delicate
office, He requested Dom Maran to ‘confer’ with the abbé
Targny*. The result of the ‘conference ᾽ was what printers
! The and honesty of Ba, — the admirable Camille Le Tellier, abbé
lae in that most curious of historical
ispates are demonstrued by M. Ch.
Loriquet, 'Le cardinal de Bouillon,
Baluse, Mabillon οἱ Th. Rainart, &c."
Kheims, 1870.
Ὁ Lettre d'an sgavant d' A. aux Auteurs
des Mémoires le Trévoux pour reclamer
wn Passage important de S. Cyprien
pret ἃ etre enlevé par de célébres Eile
Meurs Mémoires de Trtvous for Oct.
1726. See Appendix, y» 546.
* Targny enjoyed the confidence of
de Louvois, to whom he was *Theo-
logian,’ and after Le Tellier's early
death, the confidence of the Cardinal
de Rohan, and died in 1737. See
Sainte Beuve, Index de Fort Nayal, The
Latin rendering of Chinise (see p. 346,
A. 1} confuses the history by a mis-
translation worth noting, *Cum abbate
Tammy (Vheologo Domini 4e Zailier
dicti AUbatis de Zoweois) tune in rebus.
evelosiasticiy partes aper The
Abbé de Louvois had died in 1718 and
214 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCIL
€all ‘a cancel,’ The leaf was reprinted with the interpola-
tions inserted, at the expense of typographical as well as
moral symmetry, Baluze's note greatly reduced, and a
parenthesis incorporated with it stating that ‘it had been
‘necessary to alter much in Baluze’s notes, and that more
‘would have been altered if it could have been conveniently
‘effected.’ The double sense of the words can scarcely be
missed’. The sole ground alleged for the reintroduction is that
the ‘words had appeared in all French editions for 150 years,
even in that of Rigault’—the truth being that Rigault
in his foot-notes repudiates them and prints the uncorrupt
text in full.
I perceive—and anyone who will look in the first edition.
published at Paris in 1726 may perceive—in that magnificent
volume the traces of this sad story. On page 195 the interpo-
lation has been introduced. In order to make room for it this
and the next page have been reprinted with forty-seven lines
of type, there being through the rest of the volume only forty»
six lines to a page. On these or on the adjoining pages he
will find also the traces of the binders ‘guards’ by which
the separately printed pages have been inserted.
The Index seems to yield the same evidence. It fails to
register ‘cathedra, primatus, pastores, grex’ from page 195,
apparently because the clauses containing them were foisted
into it after the Index had been printed off, although it gives
the same words abundantly from other passages, and though
other words from the genuine part of that page are given
copiously; ey: ‘apostoli’ is quoted from it twice, but not from
the forged part.
parentheses are as I give them,
? 'Quin etiam necesse fuit in Baluzii
his loge was delivered at the Académie:
des Sciences at Easter 1719 The
French is ‘conférer avec l'abbé Targny
(Théologien de le Tellier, dit PAbbE
de Louvois) qui jouoit alors un róle
dans les affaires de l'Église! The
Notis non pauca mutare, oc phurs essent.
mutata, id si commade fieri potulsset —
Marnn’s parenthetic note p. &«s (ed
Paris 1726) on p. 195»
IV. πὶ, 215
Dom Maran's preface betrays the very moment of the
change. For it was made after that preface was actually in
print. He there cites the passage with only the carly
and honest addition ‘et iterum eidem post resurrectionem
suam...*' and proceeds ‘I quote this testimony [of Cyprian's]
‘just as it is contained in this edition of Baluze's, but the
‘words of Cyprian are read differently in the editions of
* Manutius and Pamelius*^
In the notes which are placed in this Paris edition at the
end of the volume, it has been found necessary to cancel what
must have been far the largest part of Baluze's original note.
A whole sheet, a pair of leaves, printed off before his death,
had to be entirely removed, viz. pages 545 and 546. In order
to preserve the continuity of the paging two leaves which
precede and follow the abstracted ones, and which also had
to be reprinted, have two page-numbers on each of their two
pages Thus, page $43 is now numbered also 544; what
would have been 544 is now 545 and 546, and so on until
ORIGIN OF THE FORGERIES,
page 551, when the single numbering of the pages is resumed.
Similarly, at the foot of the same leaves, the notations
Ggggg and Gggggij which designated the filched sheet have
been affixed additionally to their neighbours FffInj and
Hhhhh.
Professor Mabaret wow had a sight for the first time of
Baluze's original note, upon which he penned some claborate*
Ὁ ΤῈ ἵν necessary to obscrve also that
Baluze wrote : Super ium unum wdi-
βεαῖ. ἄς. Pref. px.
3 Pref pox. ‘Hoc testimonium ita
protali ut babetuz in bac Baluzli editione.
Set Cypriani verba. aliter leguntur in
«ditionibus Manutii sc Pamelii. In the
‘mutilated note the Benodictine editor
thas left cme sentence without verb—
^36] tamen scriptura, quam in contextu.
sequimur non solum editionibus Manu-
tiana antiquioribus sed etiam codicum
manuscriptorum auctoritate" (Paris ed.
1726, p. sas. The Venice ed. 1748
tp
216 CYPRIAN AND PELAGIUS PAPA SECUNDUS.
annotations which the editors did not consider worth
printing".
HL 1. What, lastly, is the Origin of the interpolated
passages themselves? It will be observed that they are four,
To the first, namely ‘And to the same apostle, &c.’ applies
the remark of Latinius that the corrections have crept in from
marginal summaries, not all at once but from time to time.
This is the oldest of all, occurring in manuscripts which have
no other trace of addition, It is simply a second text ad-
duced and affirmed to be illustrative of that which Cyprian
had quoted. The word i//um, ‘upon ¢hat one! apostle, is
alone later and polemic.
2. The second interpolation ‘established one chair’
apparently exists only in the most corrupted manuscripts*.
It makes nonsense of the argument as regards its order, but
may also have been a marginal note,
3and 4. The opening words
to Peter’ of the third interpolati
in that state, in the form namely, ‘Here th
to Peter, Cardinal Hosius" m.
in ἃ manuscript of his own,
ately before the first inte
But the rest has a vei
The. Bishops. of.
onward contended
IV. att. EXTRA PLEAS. zu
of Constantinople as having virtually censured that of Chal-
cedon. In A.D. 585 Pelagius the Second invoked the effective
authority of the Exarch Smaragdus of Ravenna and in an
Epistle to the Bishops appealed to the ‘terrible testimonies
of the fathers'—as he may well call his own quotations.
Among them Pelagius alleges a passage from Augustine
which has never been identified and bears small resemblance
to the views of that father. Then, four centuries before its
appearance in any known or any evidenced manuscript of
Cyprian, Pelagius produces the passage from the De Unitate,
with the interpolations which we are naw considering, and
without the citation from the Canticles. Thus,
Aye and Blessed Cyprian too, that noble martyr, in the book
which he called after the name of Unity, among other things says
thus: ‘The beginning sets out from unity ; and Primacy is given to
“Peter, that one Church of Christ and one Chair may be pointed
: and all are pastors, but one flock is shewn, to be fed by the
‘apostles with one-hearted accord,’ and a few words later, * He that
“holds not this Unity of the Church does he believe that he holds
‘the faith? He who deserts and rebells* the Chair of Peter, on
‘which the Church was founded, docs ke trust that he is in the
* Cherch 2”
"These interpolations can never have been meant as honest
paraphrases. The manipulation is too much. However here
they appear for the first time, and the inspection of the
passages side by side will shew how, down even to their
omission of the verse of Canticles, the later recensions of the
manuscripts have been formed upon this Epistle of Pelagius,
‘The omissions are as evidence of design no less instructive
than the insertions. 1. The text which assigns to a4 the
1 Observe the retention with an im-
pomible construction of the genuine
resistit which better scholars dropped
‘ont of their remodelled Cyprianic text.
‘This one fact also prevents our accept
ance of the possibility that the solitary
manuscript of the toth century which
contains the letter of Pelagius may
itself have been interpolated from manu
scripts of Cyprian. Pelagii Pape ἢν
Ep. 6 (2 ad Epp. itr.) Labbe (ed. Ven.
1726), vol. vi. e. 652.
See with * Note on the Citation from
Pelagius IL, p. 1e, Appendix on
the Interpolation, p. sgt.
218 CYPRIAN ‘OF THE.UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,”
apostles the remission of sins is left out, and that which gives
the Feeding of the Flock to Peter is substituted for it. 2. Those
expressions are left out which indicate that unity degins from.
one apostle, as being to the corrector's mind inadequate. 3. 50
also, as irrelevant to his purpose, is the text of Canticles.
After this we have the awkward introduction of ' Paul's
unity' because at Rome the later watchword became * Peter
and Paul’; and the reading hance et Pauli unitatem is the
attempt to invoke Paul also after Pefri had been already
adopted,
We must also note the force of the earlier interpolation
illum before unum. The contention of Cyprian was that the
Church was built on exe, For the corrector's purpose it must
be ' that one."
Mgr. Freppel's last argument for the interpolations is
that they are cited in the Acts of Alexander IIL', in
the Decretum: of Gratian*, and in the Decretum of Ivo of
Chartres*,
If such quotations in the twelfth century possessed any
importance, it would be more worth while to observe on the
other hand (with Baluzc) that Pope Calixtus II, in a Bulla to
Humbald of Lyons‘, that the Cardinals of Gregory XII.
assembled at Leghorn in A.n. r408*, and that the Roman
? Baron. Ann, Eccl. A.D, 1164, xxix.
* Hanc igitur unitatem non tenens Fri-
dericus Imperator tenere se fidem cre-
dtidit. Qui Cathedram Petri deserit super
quam fundata est ecclesia quomodo se
in Ecclesia esse confidit, But he does
not give the ‘phrase entiére' as Mgr.
Freppel (p. 279 n.) states.
? AD. Hg
? ast, 1090-1116, Ivo Decr. pars Voc.
361, where itis thus quoted, * Petri uni-
latem qui non tenet, tenere se fidem.
credit? Quicathednam Putri super quam.
fundata est Ecclesia deserit, in Ecclesia
se esse confidit 2"
IV. ut. THE PAPAL PROFIT. 219
Correctors, with the edition of Manutius before them, all
gave the passage pure of corruption.
And as to the appeal to Gratian who, in the 93rd Distinc-
tion’, quotes as from Cyprian the qth interpolation thus,
‘He who deserts the chair of Peter whereon the Church
‘was founded, let him not trust that he is in the Church,’ it
actually yields us a fifth instance of the singular fatality which
has haunted the dealers in this forgery, for in another passage
Gratian* cites the 4th and sth chapters entire from ‘the Lord
saith to Peter,’ not only omitting the phrase he elsewhere
cites but absolutely without any trace whatever of any even
the earliest corruptions.
Singular, hateful, and in its time effective, has been this
forgery as a Papal aggression upon history and literature. Its
first threads may have been marginal summaries in exaggerated
language. Then came an unwarrantable paraphrase and a
deliberate mutilation for a political purpose. Then it ap-
peared in manuscripts of the author with its indictment round
its neck, side by side on the same page with the original which
it caricatured. Then it was forced into two grand editions
with an interval of a century and a half between them, first
by the court of Rome itself, then by the court of France with
the fear of Rome before its eyes.
Tanta molis erat Romanam condere Scdem.
This is the true ‘Charter of the Investiture of the Papacy”
and as authentic as other documents in that cartulary.
Hows to make the best of the forgeries now.
The surrender by some of so important a help sugyested to others the
endeavour to do without it by weaving together different texts from
Pontificis, Rom. r607,tom. Vi. p. 90s, > Decreti Pars 1, Dist, xelll. c. il.
the interpolations are not only not — " Deereti Pam 11, Cana XXIV.
‘omitted but specially insisted on] See — Questio t, c. 13.
however, Baluze, pp. 544, $46«
220 CVPRIAN 'OF THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH."
Cyprian to shew that this one (in its corrupt state) represented what after
all was his real teaching:—an attempt which would never have been
thought of if this spurious passage had not first caused him to be thought
so powerful a support. This is done with the utmost special pleading by
P. Ballerini a.p. 1766 de vi ac vatione primatus Rows, Pontiff: x1. ili.
ed. Westhoff 1845, But a Catena of the passages is given sup. pp. 197
sqq. To any fair mind, Roman or other, commend them.
It is nothing to say that they also have scholars as alive to the forgeries
as weare. These forgeries have been important steps in their ascent to
power and maintenance of claim. Unreproved and honoured scholars
of theirs still uphold their genuineness and reprint them in text-books.
Others with superior art like the Rev. L. Rivington avoid quoting the
intruded words, but force the whole gist of them, and infallibility besides,
if he had been so understood antiently, into the genuine words, If such
had been the meaning of Cyprian, the forger would have had no occasion
for his craft.
Note on the ' Citation’ from Pelagius I. (p. 217).
"The ‘Citation’ from Pelagius 11. is of course the decus e£ columen of
the Roman proof of the genuineness of the forgery. But there are three
alternatives (i), (ii), (i
it stands) of Pelagius II. P, as seeming less to insist upon his personal
responsibility for it,
We have no external evidence to the authenticity of the first two
epistles of Pelagius 11, to the Bishops of Istria, beyond the fact that
the third alludes to some earlier ‘epistles’ and ‘words of admonition.’
Paulus Diaconus (Warnelridus), ae gestis Langobarderum 111. 20, men-
tions ‘an Epistle’ of his (written for him in fact by Gregory when a
deacon) on the Tria Capitula, and Gregory Epp. 11. 36 mentions *a
Book’ (tider) of Pelagius, on the subject. The ‘Book’ is no doubt our
long third *Epistle’ Hence
Alternative (i). If the second Epistle were not authentic of course its
testimony to the interpolation would be valueless.
But assume it to be authentic. There being only one Ms. of the Three
Epistles! and that of the xth century; and codex ΔΓ of Cyprian being
of the ixth century; we ought to consider whether 7 can have been
interpolated from M or its relations. Hence
Alternative (li). In that case again Pelagius would yleld no evidence.
4 Givento Haroniosby Nicolas Fabre, δα. 434, 891, 895], and now in Paris.
Baron. dwn. Bech A.D. 486, Pelag.ix, See Caialogur codd. MSS. Bibl. Reg.
xxviii, Labbe (Mansi ix. Florent. 1763, — P. t. ἂν Paris 1744, P. 170.
CHAPTER V.
THE HARVEST OF THE NEW LEGISLATION.
L
The softening of the Penances—Seconn COUNCIL.
IN spite of all the care and circumstance which had waited
on it, the Rule of restoration for the Lapsed was the work
οἵ a class, the most austere and in reality the least tempted.
For we must recollect that, although the clergy were most
exposed to persecution, yet the sorest of all tempters, repu-
tation, position, and even (if they ever expected a cessation
of eek may, advantag: called on. them to stand
popular feeling
dered
ἌΣ, THE EXAMINATIONS OF THE LAPSED. 225
the threshold of the Church''; some, where the clergy had a
Novatianist bias, died unaneled*; some clerical delinquents
had quietly resumed their posts, whence no material power
was able to dislodge them; many persons had resumed with
the name of Christians their old unchristian lives*, and many
families of those who despaired of practical restoration to
the blessings of the Church had been lost to heresy and even
to gentilism, The examination into individual cases had
revealed unexpected palliations; men had sacrificed to save
familics and friends from the *question'; or had without
reflection allowed themselves to be registered as ' sacrificers,"
while simply intending to purchase exemption. Cases where
there was less excuse deserved no less compassion.
At or near to Capsa* three men named Ninus, Clementian
and Florus, after enduring much violence from their own
magistrates and the angered populace, were thrown victorious
into prison. Dragged out on the arrival of the Proconsul
upon his progress", and submitted to repeated tortures in
which life was carefully guarded, they ‘could not endure till
the crown came*' They fell. Then they crept back as miser-
able penitents to the Church. More than two years after’ their
* Ej 81. 3
3 Κρ. 68. τ.
3 Ej 65. 3.
* Ep. 36. 1. Capsa (Gafsa) lay a
little north of the Tritonian Lake in the
procomular province; a rich and very
antient town in a beautiful oasis; bad
been national, suffered horrors
strongly
under Marius for loyalty to Jagurths,
the Capsiiani were still in Pliny's time
‘as much n clan as a Koman town’
{nom ciestas. tantum ied. etiam. motio).
Then it was raised to thc rank of a
*Colony'; and wax one of the rwo
‘capitals of the Dyzzcene province under
Jostinian. See Corp. mur. Latt.
Vut p.a Pliny's Caprismi refers
sather to the maio, Cyprian's Cagoenrir
to the city.
? The halt at Capsa of an earlier
consul in 153 and 180 A-D., seems to be
marked by the epitaph of his wife.
C. Δι L., vn. Le no. 110.
ferre Note use of perforo with an object
of the thing to be attained, Corp, /mserr,
Latt, vini. i, 38032, at Lambersis, *con«
jogis absentis reditum perferre nequisti’
‘of a lady dying before his return,
? Triennium (Ap. $6. 1), a good in-
stance of the inclusive reckoning in
vogue. ‘This was before Easter (Apr.
14) Act 953, wo that even if the pro-
consul had visited Capsa (which i& not
224 SECOND COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE
bishop Superius presented them to the new bishop of Capsa,
Donatulus', and the five colleagues who had assembled for
his consecration, and asked whether their pitiable exclusion
might not now be closed, It was agreed to refer the question
to the Council which Cyprian had convened for after Easter.
And Cyprian on receiving their application did not hesitate
to express in warmest terms his conviction in their favour.
In very many cases sympathy and policy united their
claims for mitigation, and the SECoND COUNCIL, which
assembled at least two-and-forty bishops in the May of
15 this year’, ruled ' that all who had so far continued stedfast in
* penance should be at once readmitted.’ Cyprian penned the
Synodical Letter which announced the decision to Cornelius*.
likely) as carly as January 520, two
years and three months is the longest
time posible, See p. 4r, n. 3,
1 The meeting at Capsa was for the
purpose of ondaining a new bishop.
Donatulus is among the Fratres saluted.
In A.» 256 he appears as Bp. of Capsa.
at vii, Conc. Carth, and was therefore
no dovbt the person now ordained.
® Easter fell in A.D. 253 on Ap. r1.
"TheSscoxpCovNcrL UNDER CYPRIAN
De pace tapsis maturius danda ix dared
1p. May, May 15—£f. 49. 10.
? Mr Shepherd (Letter d. p. τον
following the wake of Lombert aj
Pearson, Ann. Cypr. A.D. 253, lx.)
argues that the censure passed upon
‘Therapius (E. 64) for rendmitting the
lapsed presbyter Vietor to communion
could aot have been consistently passed
after the relaxation granted by the
Second Council, and that accordingly
the Council which ceusured him, which
we count Third, placing it about the
September of 13 A.D. (Ef.
have preceded our Second Council of
May 352 A.D. which issued Zp 57.
‘This is so poor an attempt at harmoniz-
fing that we can only wonder why for a
moment Mr S. should seem to drop his
universal scepticism in its favour, We
must briefly observe (1) with Pearson that
the Conciliar Epistle 57 makes reference
to one previous Council, and emanated
therefore more probably from a second
than a thin}, but Pearson's (second)
observation that it is improbable that
so many as 66 bishops should have
again met before Easter 252 after
‘their session of A.D. 251, has nothing
in it, (3) Ep. g7- t the relaxa-
tion ix granted in anticipation of the
persecution under Gallus ‘necessitate
'ogente, but Zp. 64 is written in a
, such as set in when JEmilian's
seizure of empire in April 253 withdrew
attention from Christian progress, and
inved by Valerian from June
‘onward upon principle,
relaxation granted by the Second. The
very words are borrowed from Ef. $7,
Vv. 11. ‘DE PACE MATURIUS DANDA. 225
It may be described as an able answer to his own once
sterner language. To his former argument that restitution was
‘superfluous in the case of men ready to seal their sincerity
“by martyrdom, since the Baptism of Blood was higher than
‘Ecclesiastical Peace, he replies that ‘it was the Church's
*duty to arm such combatants for that last encounter with the
"protection of the Body and Blood of Christ’ ‘Men might
* well faint (he says) who were not animated by the Eucharist.”
He remained the guiding spirit of the movement although
his policy had so altered,—rather perhaps because it had
so altered—and even when its working had evoked one anti-
pope in Rome, and two in Carthage. The letter of Antonian
exhibits commonplace bewilderment at the change, At
the results of the change Comelius gazed in horror, Cyprian
with an unaffected though not careless contempt.
I.
The Effect on Felicissimus and his Party.
Tt happened thus. The effect of the late amnesty upon
the Puritans would be to confirm them in their austerity.
At the same time their numbers were increased by new
and are again expanded in the words
"mune non infirmis sed fortümi pax
ecersaria ext.’ (4) Sometime then aftor
Easter 152. and before Autumn 354
when the 4th Council was held, we must.
place the 3rd Council which replied to
Fidos, Autumn or September of 253,
which is Pearson's conjecture, seems a.
messonable time. The 4th and 7th
"Councils were certainly held at that
time of year. Maran's (8 xxiv.) notion
{adopted by Hefele) that Fidus was an-
amvereid by 66 bishops on Id. Mai 22 in
the second Council seems unreasonable,
for why should only 42 of them have
concurred in the Synodic Epistle? It
‘was this Synodic Epistle which actually
8.
laid down the conditions for neglect of
which Therapias was censured: surely
not by the same Council,
? Satis miratus sum te,..aliquantum
ese commotum. (AA. 89. 2.)—Quod
autem tibi de Fortunato isto pseud-
episcopo non statim seripsi, frater
carissime, non ea reserat quay, &c....nec
tamen de hoc [Maximo pseudepiscopo]
tibi scripseram quando hee omnia con-
temnantur αὶ nobis... £9. 9l. To
conceive (Rettberg § 13, p- 182) that
Cornelius repaid the services which
Cyprian bad rendered him, and now
in turn upheld the tottering throne of
Carthage, is indeed to misunderstand
The circumstances and mistake the men.
15
326
converts from heathenism, and what would be the relation
of these to the Church whenever the enlargement of their
dogmatic views should incline them to the Catholic body"
was sure presently to become a serious question. They now
cast off their last hope of Cyprian and elected and conse-
crated the head of their first legation, Maximus, to be their
anti-bishop (or more accurately ' anti-pope') at Carthage *.
Meantime the laxer party perceived that the ground was
cut from under their feet, and their leading adherents, never
having done penance, found themselves as far as ever from
readmission to the Church; their numbers also had been
swelled by disciples who wished for communion on easy terms,
and all these clamoured for some action on the part of their
heads which would give them a tenable position, They had
been taunted as the ‘only unepiscopal body’ among pro-
fessed Christians* Accordingly, when Privatus, once bishop
of the new great colony of Lambesis*, but some years since
SECOND COUNCIL. ITS EFFECT ON
) Bp. 69. ty Efe γα. 153.
* I think this cannot have been done
emer. In Ej. 52. 2 Novatas has not
yet made a Bishop in Carthage. In £^.
59. 9 Maximus is spoken of as sent narjer
(vit. Lop. gt) and consecrated eme, 2.
i {that letter baving been writ-
year after the Ides of May, Ap.
59-16, 13). Rut in E. gg. ro ad Anton.
we find they had appointed bishops in
many places before the second Council.
1f therefore this step was delayed in
Carthage, it may have been because
hopes were still entertained of some de-
claration in their favour by Cyprian.
Nor can I think that the hope, though
misplaced, was unnatural.
? Ep. 89: 18-
* Ep 99. τὸν 16
5 Ep 430 5 '
* Lambesis more often im inscrip=
tions, and (Hartel) ‘in the codices of
Augustine! (Seni. Epp.), but in some
inscriptions, ax uniformly in rhe manu-
scripts of Cyprian, Lanibese (Sent, Zipp
6; Ep. 36-45 Eg. $5.10). The history
of this striking though much spoiled
place, now Lambessa, is besutif
worked out by Wilmanns from its in-
scriptions, above 1700 in number (Cons.
icr. Latt. vith, is pe 483}. Twas a
wholly modern military town, sprung
from the great eampof the Third Legion,
which, after A.D. 123, Hadrian fixed on
the north slope of Aurasius or Middle
Atlas, to keep the continent quiet. In
bot a vicus, but theleave
tween A.D. noe 1 should infer.
V.1L THE INDEFINITE IN DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE, 227
condemned of heresy in ἃ Council of ninety bishops holden at
that place', and severely censured by letters from Donatus of
Carthage and Fabian of Rome, applied for a fresh hearing by
the Council of 252 A.D. and was refused, this party too
repaired its own defect by procuring his adhesion in the
heat of his mortification. A new coalition of Five’ created
one of Cyprian's oldest opponents, Fortunatus’, into a second
anti-bishop of Carthage,
The fault was fatal* and it was followed by instant collapse.
Whatever presbyteral standing they had was gone. Whatever
hopes they had cherished of a grand general reconciliation
with the Church were gone, Their followers were not in thc
main prepared to aecept a new Church and a new bishop.
"They had thrown away the advantage which numbers gave
them; although those numbers were up to that moment
scarcely a minority as compared with the Cyprianic church*.
"The announcement in Carthage that twenty-five bishops were
expected from Numidia to consecrate Fortunatus in Carthage,
from Cyprian's wording that it was 2
‘Colonia not only when he wrote in A.D.
152, bat many years before when Pri-
‘vatus its bishop was condemned, ' Pri-
tans colonia ante multos fere annos con-
demmatem" (E^. 5%. ro). As that was
in Fatian's time, between τού δορά 250,
this casual Cyprianic date exactly fits
‘in with Wilmanns’ obwrvation. Next
Year 253 the Legion was restored, and
the greatness of the place, with its
60,000 people, continued till Constan-
tine made Cirta the capital and gave it
lis own name. Then Lambesis cole
lapsed. In A.D. 364 it had no bishop.
I may observe that in aga its bishop
was probably Januarius, as he is a very
senior bishop (6th) in 256. Sew. App.
1 Bp 49. 16 ' nonaginta
Mententia condemnatum, anteceisorum
etiam nostrorum...Fabiani et Donati
literis severissime notatum. Thus con-
aeientiowly cxprewed by an Ultra-
montane, ‘Privat s'était vu condamner.
.par une asemblée de 90 évéques,
dont fe pape saint Fabien avait confirmé
da sentence.’ Freppel, p. 395.
? They were Privatus himself; Felix,
a peeudo-bishop of Privatus' appoint-
ment; Repostus, a lapsed bishop pro-
bably of Tuburmbe (see p. e, n. 4}}
Maximus and Jovinas, convicted of
lapse and sacrifice, who (from their hav.
ing been first condemned by nine bishops
there bythe first Council) were doubtless
bishops.
? Dean Milman took Fortunatus for
o anti-popesin Carthage. Lat. Chris»
dianity, 1. Y.
* Ep 49. 18:
? AT rightly anderstapd AA $9. 15-
15—2
228 THEY FORM A SHORT-LIVED FREE EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
the announcement in Rome that they had actually done so,
failed to accredit him*. Felicissimus sailed for Rome in the
capacity of legate to his new chicf* or instrument: Cornelius
and the milder party might yet be willing by a recognition of
Fortunatus to drive Novatianism off the field with numbers.
They represented Cyprian's cause as lost. ' They were pre-
‘pared to bring him to trial before the church of Carthage.
‘His flock were ready to expel him tumultuously from the
‘city. If Cornelius refused to hear the documents which
‘they submitted, they should feel bound to communicate them
‘to the Roman laity*' Cornelius was disconcerted by the
violence of Felicissimus though not imposed upon. He
repelled him with spirit, but wrote tartly of Cyprian's neglect
in not informing him of the movements of the party. Cyprian
in his long-practised tone of business indicates a certain defect
in the memory of Cornelius, and apologizes for unavoidable
delay on the part of his messenger, the acolyte Felician. His
advice is keen and stimulating, and though he opens half sar-
castically he is profoundly affected by the prevalent disorders,
‘If Sacrificers and deniers of Christ are to be proposed,
‘admitted, and then to terrorize, the Church may as well sur-
“render to the Capitol at once; Bishops may be gone and take
‘the Lord’s altar with them; idols and images may transfer
‘themselves and their altars into the assemblage of the clergy.’
‘No priest of God is weak enough, abject or prostrate enough,
‘nor so enfeebled by the imbecility of mortal incompetency, as
' not to rouse himself against the enemies and assailants of God
“in godlike wise, and feel his lowness and feebleness inspirited
“by the valour and vigour of the Lord,’ The best refutation
however was that Cyprian himself ws t worn out by the
1 Hp 59. τιν Clearitis that among — tinct! ti
the allusions to schism and pseudo- divider of the flock. This alone might
bishops in the de Unituie none bear on — fix the catise,
the incidents of the two Carthaginian — * £9. 59. 1, 16.
pretenders. It is Novatian himself who — EA. 59. 9, 3 1.
{in all the chapters viti. to end) is dis-
V.IL. PURITAN FIBRE MORE LASTING, BUT NOT IMMORTAL. 220.
labour of examining and readmitting the fast-recanting ad-
herents of Felicissimus and by the anxieties of rejecting those
whom the flock (for every case was formally put to them! and
considered in their presence) absolutely refused to receive,
"The Christian public witnessed singular pictures of the brutal
insistence of some, the tearful thankfulness of other candidates
for restoration®, Mistakes were made. Cyprian confesses
that he had disastrously in more than one instance overruled
protests against false penitents. It is well worth remarking
that in this age the claim for stricter penitential discipline
‘was not sacerdotal or official, but popular. In epochs of
suffering it will be always so.
These causes then, the decision of the Council, the suicidal
policy of a rival episcopacy with no moral basis, and the
popular demand for discipline, acted rapidly to break up the
party. Cyprian estimated that at the moment when its
emissary was intimidating Cornelius at Rome it had suddenly
shrunk in Carthage to a congregation inferior in number to
the clerical members of the first Council". Presently all trace
of them is lost, They vanished before more earnest ques-
tioners. But Novatianism contained no such seeds of speedy
dissolution. Although Cornelius represents to Antioch, to
Alexandria‘ and to Carthage in terms stronger than Cyprian
as in the East shews bow little was
Known of the date or origin of such
officers.
3 Ej. 89. ties than the bishops, pres-
bytera and deacons who had been their
sjadges.’ Righty-eight bishops from
1 £p, sg. 18, rogari, cf rogure legem,
mogisteatum.
3 KR x9 15. The statement of
Soceates (v. 10} that this was the
moment at which Penitentiary. Pres-
byters were instituted to hear private
confessions is counter to the whole
view of the time, Suomen (vil. 16)
gives an interesting picture of the
Roman method of penance at much
later date in which the bishop is him-
self the fellow penitent and the ab-
solver. And this direct contradiction
of his own statement that Penitentiarics
were an institution in the West as well
all parte of Africa are scarcely likely to
number for the presbyters and deacons
of Carthage it may give nt rather more
than jeo às the relics of the Congrega
tion of Felicissimas.
* Ens, AB vi. 48, 46.
230 CLERICAL AND EPISCOPAL SENTENCES,
uses of Felicissimus, that Novatian was almost abandoned,
still his sect with its episcopal successions endured throughout
Christendom far into the sixth century,—a stern Puritan relic
of the Decian persecution, It has been well said that ‘like
‘all unsuccessful opposition it added strength to its triumphant
‘adversary, and only evoked more commandingly the growing
‘theory of Christian Unity."
IIL.
The Legacy of Clerical Appeals under the Law of the Lapsed —
THE THIRD AND FOURTH COUNCILS.
The Spanish appeal against Rome,
From this point we may with advantage carry our view
forward to certain illustrative cases which arose in the course
of the next two years, after the main work of reconciliation
for such as returned was over, We have
appeals made to the See of
so found it harder to return. T
a new position in some aggressi:
τι, HARVEST OF NEW LEGISLATION—THIRD COUNCIL. 231
extended to any presbyters and deacons who had taken
part in a heresy or a schism’; and it presents a singular and
contradictory appearance of laxity that only Novatianists and
Donatists held the mark of orders to be so indelible that
bishops returning to them after lapse resumed their functions.
Late in the summer of the next year one of the African
bishops, the same Fidus, who, as we shall learn, counted
infants under eight days old too impure for christening’, re- fo
ported to the primate that a lapsed presbyter, Victor by name, Es
had after an insufficient period of penance been admitted to Yibiee
communion by their colleague Therapius of Bulla‘, A few Galtus
words of this worthy, who spoke in his place of seniority as ta
sixty-first bishop in Cyprian's last Council’, give an maur. [v
one whose fancy might outrun discretion. 'He who concedes 1.
*and betrays to heretics,’ he then said, ‘ the Church's (right of) \
* baptism, what is he but the Judas of Christ's Spouse?’ But ™*
if Therapius thought an unsound opinion within the Church
& worse betrayal of the Church than apostasy from her, the
uncharity of Fidus is in contrast to the spirit of Cyprian.
Fidus evidently desired that a new excommunication should
overtake Victor,
At his good fortune the Turn Counctt of sixty-six ^. 253,
bishops, who met Cyprian probably* in September A.D. 253,
"were less offended than at the autocratic manner in which
2 BA Ro
"Cod. Cann, Bech, Afr at (C.
Justeltus, Paris 1614, 1. p. 98 ; 11. p«41)..
L'Aubespine, Obiersat, V. ὧν Oprat,
Ὁ V. infra ch. viti. v. 2
+ Ep. 64. Baluse (copied by Routh,
RS. νοὶ. τας p. 144), and Moreelli
Arm), take Bulla without sufficient
Texon to be a different place from
Bulls Regia. Tt was in Numidis Pro-
consularis, nesr where the boundary
crosses the Bagradas, and over so miles
from Hippo Regius on the road to
Canhage—now Hammam Darridji,
δ. Δ Le vein be pe agg, ll p« aa.
It was a small old (Oror.) Free Town
(Tiin.) above the vast rich plain of the
Bagradas (Procop. de Bell. Vand. |.
ag. Kt cannot have been, as Momm-
sen seems to suggest, the same as
Bulleria, since a bishop from each
attended the summons of Hunerie to
Carthage in A.D. 4a» A sketeh in
A. Grahun's Zuníria, p- 188,
® We cannot attach weight to the
statement of the later sis, of the Saw-
dett. Epp. that he was a confessor.
* On the date of this Council see
ποίφα 3, 3, P. 584.
232 EPISCOPAL CASES, FOURTH COUNCIL,
even the now lenient conditions of restoration had been
ignored. They would not withdraw the boon which a ‘Priest
of God' had granted, but a vote of censure was passed
upon Therapius (who may be supposed to have been present
in his place in Council") for giving a gratuitous indulgence
which the Laity had neither requested nor sanctioned*,
The second case came from Assuras*—a populous inland
town, whose ruins lie widespread over height and ravine,
The Temple and the Christian Church, which are still, after
its gates of the Antonines, the most marked objects there,
may well have witnessed the incidents which brought on the
appeal The diocese had already elected Epictetus to the
Chair vacated by the idolatrous sacrifice of Fortunatian*, when
this traitor bishop, supported by a party of fellow-lapsed, re«
claimed the function and emoluments* as his right. Cyprian,
whose characteristic mistake was to consider every office of
a church vitiated to nullity if discharged by an unworthy
minister, urges that view more than the broad ground of
order, in answer to an appeal to him from the disquieted
flock, and counsels a resort to individual canvassing, if
necessary, in order to knit the church firmly together under
their authentic bishop.
Far the most important to us however of all cases of
appeal is one which did not come before Cyprian until
" about September A.D.254. Its importance lies in the prin-
ciples which it reveals as already regulating the intercourse
1 The form of expression may seem As
to warrant this: ‘satis fuit objurgore á » 631 inhabitants
"Therapium collegam mostrum..et iw — Assurii as now Zanfur, but its
afrisitie! Κρ. 64. Y.
3 Ej 64.
5. Eg. 6s. Also,like Bulla, in Numidia " 368.
Proconsularis. See N. Davis, Ruined 1 ‘erroneously treats this
Cities within Numid. and Carth, Ter- as Fell follows.
ritories, p. 69, and Sir G. Temple's £x- j ipes et oblationes et
«mvrions, νοὶ, τι. p. 266, Colonia Julia τ
V. Il. SPANISH APPEAL TO CVPRIAN AGAINST ROME. 253
of churches or dioceses, But, reserving for the present the Valerianus
development of these principles, we will here relate only the π᾿ τ ^
striking circumstances of the Lapse and the immediate action Imp; Ces.
taken upon it. It is a wild tale, so to speak, of the old
Border Life between Christianity and Paganism. P. F. Aug.
The Bishops of Leon and Merida in Spain had accepted
testimonials to their orthodoxy as pagans’. The former,
Basilides by name, repented and formally abdicated his scc
when the persecution lulled. He then confessed not only his
crime of Lapse, but how in the superstitious terror of some
illness he had blasphemed the God of his faith, After this
confession he thankfully accepted the position of a Layman,
Martial of Merida had long ago enrolled himself in one of
those religious colleges which, besides their other celebrations,
performed the funeral ritual of their members with all pagan
solemnities in cemeteries secured to them by law* With
such rites he interred children of his own.
The Chairs of these two men had been filled by other two
elected by their own churches and approved by the ncigh-
bouring prelates. Basilides afterwards recovering from his
dejection paid a visit to Rome, and there he and, we must
infer, Martial also’, by some fraudulent means procured a
declaration from the new pope Stephen that he would hold
them still to be the lawful occupants of the two 8668.
Against this sudden and monstrous utterance the Spanish
churches appeal to Cyprian. A FoURTH COUNCIL of seven &». 35e
and thirty bishops, assembling under him at Carthage‘, accept
the appeal, reverse the Roman sentence’, and instruct the
churches to keep to their righteous course. There is no
further reference to the Roman scc in the matter.
3 Bp. 67. Set above, p. 81. See more fully on this appeal and on
5 Renan, Ler Apleres, ch. xvii. p. the affair of Martian of Arles in the
di. gives some interesting details of chapter on Stephen, p. gti.
these colleges. 3 Bp 67. 5 ? Simply, ‘our colleague Stephen
* TP. Concil, Carth, sab Cypr (Sep- was ἃ long way off and ignorant of the
Member?) &-n. 254. Ej. 65, Synodicn. facts amd of the tih! Ej. 67. 5
234 FOURTH COUNCIL, EPISCOPAL CASES,
It is obviously of extreme interest and importance to
observe principles not created but unquestioningly acted upon
in this cause. The action taken is quite compatible with the
thought of Rome as Principatis Ecclesia? as a centre of * unity,’
but irreconcilable with any view of that see as a centre of
legislation or jurisdiction, or even as a centre of reference.
Meantime we may remember that while the legislation.
provided for the Lapsed was temporary, the principles which
it first brought into strong relief are for all time. And we
may still regard our possession of them as our inheritance
from the Decian persecution.
A less happy forecast attends the case of a *contumelious"
Deacon and a Layman abetting him, which is referred to
Carthage by the Bishop Rogatian*, in all likelihood the
same who figures in the Councils, Bishop of Nova, deep in
Mauretania’,
The tone of the letter indicates that he was known to
Cyprian; ‘Let no man despise thy old age,’ he says, He
writes however not for himself only but in the name of ' col-
leagues, so that his systematic consultations were at work.
The idea of authority is developed and fortified, but it is the
same idea as in the fourth epistle, resting on the same precept
in Deuteronomy* of reverence and obedience to the High
Priest. That means simply, that details had taken time to
work out, but that from the first Cyprian held that view which
he held last of the identity of internal relations in the two
polities of Israel and the Chur
The case, says Cyprian, might have been properly dealt
with by excommunications on the part of Rogatian himself
alone,
"This is the course which, with his leagues who were
1 Seep.ignund Appendix, p. 537. ὠἀ Dent xvii. 12, 13, Tt was pro-
Y Ep bably this quotation which determined
? See Appendix om Cities, p. 818; Pearson.
V. nm
EPISCOPAL CASES.
235
present,’ he recommends in the last resort, but he would rather
rely on an appeal to good sense and feeling'.
But here we see excommunication, instead
sincerely urged.
It is well and
of being kept as the discipline of sin, already looming as an
engine for managing the Church.
10. Ritschl pointed out (p. 239)
that argument and allusion in £j. 3,
as Pearson counted it, are not of an
early stamp; and I would further
Observe on the close verbal resem-
blance between Ej. 3. 1, 1 and Epp.
59. 45 66. 35 and de Unit. 17, 18,
which connects it with the time we
are discussing.
If the ‘colleagues present’ are a
Council, and not rather the Occasional
Board, it was probably the Third Coun-
cil, for Rogatian attended the Second
and Fourth.
AD. 25%
ton
pne
CHAPTER VI.
EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY,
L
The Church in relation to Physical Suffering.
1, Within itself —The Berber Raid.
EVEN whilst the Council sate news arrived that many
Christian maidens, wives and children’, had been kidnapped
from Numidia by the Berbers. The frontier tribes, quieted
last by Severus, were in movement t
ing terror into the provinces.
Faultily’ and fatally these i
back by settlers from Asia and
by fortresses, military coloni
tenure, absolute mz
or incorporate them,
steady return.
In the year 252 thei
Mauretania felt them.
the grand chain of
ΜΈ τα. THECHURCH AS TO SUFFERINGS OF HER MEMBERS, 237
of the strongest towns, Thubun on the Salt Marsh, and the
vast soldier-colony of Lambesis. From the Sahara they came
right through the Province itself into the terebinth woods of
Tucca and to the great centre of traffic Assuras, little more
than a hundred miles from Carthage.
The Christian population of at least eight sees was thus
lacerated*.
As memorials of transactions so fatal ultimately to the
ehurch of Africa and to all the civilization which depended
on it, clearing the ground as they did for Vandal and for
Saracen, there remain in explanation of each other only
scattered notices, a few inscriptions, and the sixty-second
epistle of Cyprian which went with a ransom*,
This must have been a serious time for the dominion
of Africa, though we know nothing direct about it. Not
Cyprian but two or three unburied marbles* tell us how
3 fn the fourth century children were
constantly redeemed from the Berbers
and baptived if unidentified, P. Conc.
Carth. c. 6, A.D. 398, Labbe II. 1485
(Brew. Come, Hiffs 0.0. 39% &- 39, but
see alio na. on cc. 38, 39, Helele, J
4. C. B. vint, το), Cod. Cane. Eccl.
Afr. τὰν Jostell. p. 198 (el. 1614),
Labbe; at 1308. (2 fre hinc deg. huic.)
In Ab. 409 we mark them kidnapping
ΜΠ further north at Sitifis itself, Aug.
Bp. cis (exxii) 7.
? An affecting inscription given in
Rew. Afr. Vit. p- 359 belongs to the
year AD, 247 (Anno Provincias Maure-
lanbe 208) ^ P CCVEE D M. HAVE 58:
CYNDEK PARENTIRVS TVIS DVLCISSIMK.
FLOR IVVENTVTIS AN V A BARFAKIS
INTEREMETYS MVCIA. AMAR [the last
four letters from Wilmanns cast,
who has ἃ after DM, and for Y a small
tQ) Goh L vit th grs). A
forgery claiming to be of year 254 with
ἃ curious story is given C. Δ Δ. Vill. i.
pexxavib, 39. Other inscriptions, be-
longing to the next 30 or 4o yenrs.
relate to the defeats of WARAXEM ©
REDELLIS CVM SATELLITINVS 5vIS,
€. Δι δέν, ll go45, the chieftain from.
whom the Frarinemter hod. Fraoucen
are said to be called, of the QUINQUR-
OENTANEI REBELLES at Bougie, Sulde,
C. . L, Witte li. 8924 (Rer. Afr. τν,
(Eutrop. ix. 23). The Besbers between
Sitifs and Cina are by Pliny v. o (4)
and Ptolemy iv. y (p. 111) ealled
Sabarbares, Σαβούρβουρε, which insaid
lo contain the Numidian prefix Zab
(Fere Africaine, vol. vi. p. 43, Re),
but in either case with v. L Sababares,
Σαβούβουρεν, as in one of the above
1081 (published slace the previons para-
238 EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY. ——
a year or two later the Bavares under four united native
princes wasted Numidia as far up as Milev. There, and
again on the Maurctanian frontier, they were violently checked
by C. Macrinius Decianus, propretor. He defeated at the
same time other great leagues or clans" of them, as the Quin-
quegentanei, who fell on Mauretania itself; and while he
claimed the credit of the capture and execution of Faraxen*,
almost a chieftain of romance,—like the present Berber chiefs,
‘who look as if thawed out of marble statues of Roman
emperors'/—it would seem that the actual seizure of him
and his whole staff was the exploit of Gargilius Martialis, an
officer who had served in Britain and now commanded the
loyal Moorish cavalry. Still further west Auzia, now Awmale,
must have been in peril, for when, in A.D. 260, Gargilius him-
self was destroyed by a Berber ambush, Auzia commemorated
by a statue his former act of ‘valour and vigilance’
The redemption of captives, like the portioning of orphans,
had long been among the Romans a favourite work of
liberality— most worthy of the gravity and greatness of the
senatorial order*^
There was nothing specifically Christian, nothing novel
in the collection which was promptly made at Carthage for
graph and its note 1 were written), con-
siders that the victories of Decian belong
to the years 253 and 254. He was
'Legutus duorum Augustorum Numi-
dim, íe of Valerian and Gallien, in
Ap. 260, to whieh year the movement
itself belongs, See the inscriptions, C. Z.
L. viri. i. 2615 (αι Lambesis), ii. 9047
(Ansa), and compare ij, go4s, Mark
the (ice! provinciam Numidiam.
> Bavarum.
? Gen. realy shews that Babares
included Quinquegentanei and Fraxi-
menses, Rew Archéol. 1861, p. 51. See
also Tissot 1. 483, 11. 790.
* The Dux famorissimus (full of
legends) of the Fraxinenses must be
Faraxen himself, Col. R. L. Playfair,
Travels in the Footsteps of Broce
VL 1 1. THE CHURCH AS TOSUFFERINGS OF HER MEMBERS. 239
the victims, except the number and poverty of the con-
tributors. But this novelty was Christian. The motives
which they had found irresistible were ‘that the captives
‘were living shrines of deity; that Christ was in them and
‘they in Christ; that such an event was a probation not only
‘of sufferers but also of sympathizers; that all looked for a
‘Judgment in which sympathy would be the main subject of
‘enquiry.’ If He will then say 'I was sick and ye visited me,’
much more will the Redeemer say 'I was captive and ye
redeemed me.’ How full Cyprian's mind was at this moment
of these topics we shall recognize as we proceed.
Nearly eight hundred! pounds was subscribed by the
community, and by the sitting bishops; by these partly
on behalf of their poor churches. The list of donors, sent
into Numidia, was accompanied by the request that they
might be commemorated at the sacrifices and in private
prayers, and with an assurance of further help should the
need, as was too likely, recur.
Of Genwineness Geographicat.
A beautiful incidental proof of the genuineness of our documents
comes out here, The relief is sent from Carthage to eight Numidian
bishops, Januarius, Maximus, Proculus, Victor, Modianus, Ne-
meslanus, Nampulus, Honoratus, but there is no mention of their
sees. Now in the list of the Council of 256 four of these reappear as
bishops of two Numidian sees which are named and two Provincial ;
viz. Januarius of Lambaesis and Nemesianus of Thubun, Victor of
Assuras and Honoratus of Tucca. These towns with Auzia give
the geographical line ] have indicated, which is itself a sign of
accuracy, What forger of another age and country could hare
marked for himself upon his map a line of barbarian advance and
then have forborne to indicate it, but in a wholly unconnected docu-
ment have attached to the sees which marked that line the names
οἵ some of his fictitious bishops? Behind this line toward Mt. Aures
3 Ep 62.4 "sestertium centam millia — Martel in seading ‘sestertia centum
mümmum. Gronov.lib.desest.n.18' mila nummorum, nor do Baluse’s
Hartel. The two Xvth century extant — quotátions prove it to be possible.
MBs, of this epistle scarcely justify
240 EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
lie several Cyprianic sees, such as Thamugadi, Mascula, Theveste,
"and beyond it Gemella, Badias, and others; some of these no doubt
were the other four sufferers. [n another place I shall shew how the
order of the names in Councils (a matter of seniority) corresponds
with other indications.
The Church in relation to Heathen Suffering —The Plague,
And now the formation and compacting of the Christian
community have for some time engrossed us, Meanwhile
changes have passed over the aspect which that community
presented to the world. That community owed and owned
a duty to all unconverted humanity—not only a duty to
absorb it with all possible rapidity into itself—but a duty also
towards the part not within any given time likely to be
absorbed. That enquiry into social morals which most taxed
the philosophical power of paganism had been overtaken by
a code, or the principle of a code, which exempted no man
from active benevolence, The doctrine of Grace operating
upon and cooperating with the human will to reconstruct
character, the embracement of eternal life and reward, the
earthly pattern of Christ and the passion of reproducing it,
above all the experienced and attested union of the individual
spirit with Him during the present existence, placed the Chris-
tian, so soon as he began to realize this new range of Ideas,
in an attitude of fresh and unexpected energy towards every
person and every contingency with which he came in contact.
This realization had been to the practical comprehension
of the convert Cyprian an affair of perhaps a few weeks’,
This realization was what he excelled in impressing on other
men. Even the East appreciated this tion of his on the
community. ‘He educated the whole 1
‘undisciplined ignorance of doctrine, brought :
‘of men*/ says Gregory of Nazianzus, We have watched him
3 Pont. Pit. 3. δευσίαν ἐκάθηρε, καὶ ἀνδρῶν Blow ἐκόσ-
3 Greg. Naz Or, xxiv. ig or ume »
dre» ἐναίδευσε καὶ δογμάτων ἅπαι-
VLL2. THE CHURCH AND HEATHEN SUFFERING. 241
awhile as the Organizer. We return to follow him through
the same period as the Master of Doctrine reduced to Life.
If we can vividly place this work before our eyes as it
went on in one great city of the old world, we shall stand
close to the fountain-head of the movement. It was in the
cities that it burst out, as it was in the busiest Galilean towns
that Christ Himself had preached most attractively. While
each of the great cities had its own part, Alexandria the
more profound and speculative and Rome the more political,
Carthage, in some respects 80 like England, with its blended
races, its contracted home, world-wide intercourse, and ready
interest in theories which had their birth elsewhere, attained
its own truest historical eminence through Christianity, and
that eminence the most instructive of all for us.
"The field on which first opened out the Christian strength
in contrast to heathen helplessness was a terrible one. In
the year 252 A.D. the Great Plague reached Carthage. The
epoch was one of those periods of physical disturbance which,
tightly or not, have been noted in connection with plagues.
Famine, protracted drought, tornadoes and unexampled hail-
storms’ prevailed. The pestilence had descended two years
before from /Ethiopia!' upon Egypt; a pestilence differing
specifically from the third visitation in the reign of Justinian’,
which was strictly analogous to the modern plague, but
travelling the same route and exhibiting a somewhat similar
character with its predecessor of the fifth century before
Christ. Whether these were different disorders, we cannot
distinguish, Both were of the class of malignant typhoid fever.
The absence at Carthage of those pulmonary complications,
which Thucydides describes as one of the most distressing
symptoms, may be attributable to the dry atmosphere of
§ Ad Demetr. 2, 7, 10. embellished his long account of this
2 Zoonras, xil. 31. Camus KE by many particulars from other pesti-
Compare Thuc. ii, 48 ..4 Alferier.. lences De Bal Ferr. d. 22 (Dind.
ἔχωτα δὲ καὶ és Αὔγνπτον, e, vol. t. pe 249).
? Procopius appears 16 me to have
n
AD. aft
342 EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY. d
Tunisia, but neither does Cyprian mention the red and livid
blistering eruption, nor yet the brain affection, which among
the Athenian sufferers had frequently resulted in the ex-
tinction of memory, If Eutropius is accurate, it also differed
from that pestilence in not extinguishing like it all other
disorders, but was on the contrary attended by a multiplicity
of them’. Other symptoms, perhaps the most general, are
identical—the diarrhoea, the ulcerated mouth and throat, the
congested eyes, the internal fever and incessant sickness; the
loss to survivors of the feet or other extremities, the lame-
ness, blindness, or total deafness, Both were preceded by
the intense nervous depression which induced the premoni-
tory symptom of threatening spectres*.
This plague went on for a term of twenty years ranging the
civilised world, returning once and again to countries which
it had desolated and to cities in which it seemed to have
stricken every house*, In A.D. 261 its recoil on Alexandria
was worse than its first assault, and in four years more it had
reduced the population by above one half* It fell on the
armies of Valerian and delivered the East up to Sapor. In
262 five thousand persons died in Rome, and the same number
in Achaia, on a single da: In 270 the emperor Claudius.
died of it while it was serving as his most effective auxiliary
against the Gothic hordes in Thrace. It had run but half
its course when Dionysius quotes and affirms the remark
that of all the wars and miseries which oppressed the race
+ Sola pestilentia et morbis ntque claimants for cornbetween the ages of 14
sxgritudinibus motus eorum principatus ος
feit Bute. ix, 5.
? Greg. Nyss. vit. δι Gra. Thanm.
8 ote. Procop. Le p. s8t φάσματα,
δαιμόνων. παίεσθαι ῴοντο πρὸν τοῦ ἐν-
τυχόντος ἀνδρόε. bscurity of Trebellius Pollio
3 Dionys. ap. Euseb. vii, 22.—Conti. ibbon takes it
nvatas per ordinem domos... Pont. Vif.
<9 8o Orosius, vil. ar.
* At Alexandria the whole sum of
VI. 1. 2. THE CHURCH AND HEATHEN SUFFERING, 243
of man the plague alone had outrun the darkest anticipa-
tions.
This was the horror and the misery which fell like an
unnatural night on the Christians’ dawning hopes of peace
and order,
In our present year it carried off the young emperor
Hostilian!, and the emperor Gallus and his son Volusian were
winning golden opinions by their care for the interment of the
meanest victims’. To confess to any sanitary motive, such
as we hope we may suspect, would have been impiety.
Avowed measures of relief were limited to edicts for universal
sacrifices which exposed Christianity to fresh persecution from
populaces which furiously marked its non-compliant attitude,
and also to an unprecedented issue from the imperial mints
of coins dedicated to ‘Healthful Apollo*" These remedies
marked the limits of antique self-devotion to populations sick
Ὁ Aur. Victor, Efe. go. All mss. — SALUTARI (Stevenson, p. 67), In the
here reed Hostilianus Perprwne or Per
ferme, am Etruscan name originally
which occurs on no coin of him, Hints
‘seem latent under both names of his
brother, made emperor with bim, and
lost with Decius, viz. Herennius Etrus-
us son of Herennia Etruscilla, Zo:
simas, i. 25, lays this death to the
jealousy of Gallus.
9 Aur. Victor de Cz. c. go * tenuissimi
cajusque exsequias curarent," Earlier we
have in Petronius Salyric, c. 116 "ἴλης
quam in pestilentia campos, in quibus
nibil aliud est nisi cadavera qux lace-
runtur ant corvi qui lacerant."
2 The story of the invocation is tragic.
Caracalla sick in mind and body after
Geta's murder struck his denarius
bearing APOLLO SALUTARIS with other
Soins of similar allusion (sce Steven-
son, Dict, Rom. Coins, 1889, p. 67).
‘Then Gallos in this plague about A.D.
154 (so Eckhel) struck lange brass and
Other metals and forms, APOLLINL
British Museum are two ' Antoníani,"
an aureus and a half-aureus of the type.
Aho (Greeber and Poole, Aoman
Medallions in Brit. Muss pp» 51, 60)
ἃ brass medallion of Gallus and one of
Volusion, which bear Apollo with
radiate head standing on rocks holding
An his right a laurel branch, in his left
4 serpent, Iegend ARN Ar There
refer to the same tutelage and the need
of it, even if Pellerin’s clever interpre-
tation of Arma and Avisinms erecting a
Colewns i» not certain (Stevenson,
Remain, 2885, vol. Vor pp. 938) 239.
468.
Similar types are continned through
the next reign with revivals of the Di
Majores and (it is sald) the first ap-
Pesanoe οἵ Diana (bo s beer ου
244 [EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
unto death, That the greatest happiness of the greatest
number is best secured by the devotion of the individual to
his own, was not then a floating theory. It pervaded society
as a living principle. When physical terror became the domi-
nant chord in life ‘egoism' perfected its melody. Instant
flights, the desertion, the exposure of the dying, the barred
gates of the house-courts, the hasty flinging out of the dead,
street assassinations and drugged possets, the spoliation of
unprotected fortunes, the last corruption of the judicature,
marked the opportunity and the successes of Self let loose*
upon society. Every natural, every acquired scruple broke
down’,
But the entrance of self-sacrifice upon the scene docs
indeed difference the plague in Carthage, in Nco-Cacsarca,
or Alexandria from the plague of Athens. In each of these
cities the Bishop of the Christians was a leading citizen. The
earliest-dated though but passing mention of this plague is
in connection with the deaths of several* Egyptian Deacons.
‘The behaviour of Gregory in Pontus secured the faith of that
region. Nor had the wearing persistence of the misery any
power to abate zeal, In Alexandria ten years later, when
half the town had perished‘, there was still in rendering
the last offices almost an excess of tenderness, such as
scarcely could be justified except by the moral effect of
intrepidity upon a population. For it so subjected the Church
to contagion, and swept away such crowds of faithful lives,
that the Christians owned that now at length was verified
the soubriquet with which by an ungenerous perversion that
Parisian-like populace had long stigmatized them—they were
become ‘the Offscouring’ of all.
At Carthage, so soon as the usual street-scenes and house-
scenes began, Cyprian summoned his communi:
! Pont. Vit. 95 ad Demelr. το, 11. — seven according to Conc. Neoeses. A.D.
? Procdandi dissimulatio nulla, ad :
Demetr, vi.
* i. assuming that there were only
VL1.2. THE CHURCH AND HEATHEN SUFFERING. 245
speech which his deacon wished the whole city could have
heard from the rostra, developed the duty and divineness of
prayer and labour on behalf of persecutors In this light he
appealed to their Christian belief in their veritable Sonship to
God'. His epigrammatic ‘Respondere (Natalibus! is a nobler
version of Noblesse oblige and no less defies rendering,
He then, with the facility which marked his arrangements,
forthwith proposed and carried a scheme for the systematic
care of the city. With a few marked exceptions* the whole
society, rich and poor alike, partly from motives like his own,
partly under the spell of his personal influence’, responded to
the appeal, undertook the parts he assigned them, raised an
abundant fund, and formed an adequate staff for the nursing
and burial of sufferers and victims, without any discrimination
of religious profession‘,
Of this organization probably little or nothing transpired
before the heathen. We see to-day how the wide organiza-
tions, much more the self-sacrifice, of the Church's work in
obscure London can escape the philanthropic novelist and
even the religious sects of more prosperous quarters. The
slow, vast effect of those unsuspected forces on Carthage may
cheer the sacrificers and organizers of to-day. It was not
likely to be recognised in that old tortured and torturing city
that the new enthusiasm of humanity was fired by Christianity.
Or if this partly emerged, still nothing could overcome the
natural disgust with which citizens regarded such stolid
? Font Pi. 9 'Respondere nos ¢ ..exuberantium operum Largitate,
decet nstalibus nostris." quod bonum est ad amnes, non ad
3 infer that there were exceptions
from d De Op. & Bl, i3" quaufam ἐπ
wecleria. videwus...de quibus mairari non
oportet quod covlemmant im tractatious
Een: which evidently refers to un-
answered appeals made by himself apon
this subject,
"Sub tanto doctore... placeret ct
Deo patri, et judici Christo, et interim
sacerdoti. Pont. Fat 10,
solos domesticos fidei Pentius, Vit. ro,
desires the forgiveness of the Jewish
remains of hix own fellow-believers,
lower than that of Cyprian, * Ful-
nies (he adds) belongs to the times of
Christ”
245 EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
enemies of the emperor and the empire. How else account
for the erect coldness with which their sect looked on at the
propitiations and tears presented to Health, to Apollo, and
to Calestis Queen of Heaven? None however was so ob-
noxious as the ' Overseer’ of the Christians—for the populace
knew well that title, The publication of the sacrificial edict
had been once more a signal for the Circus to demand that
Cyprian should be fetched and matched with one of their
lions, and he was officially proscribed by name and office’.
His terrible work was not over, and grave political com-
plications had gathered round him, when five years later,
A.D. 257, he was banished. This, says his biographer, ‘was
‘his reward for withdrawing from living sight a horror like
“that of hell’ and for ‘saving his country from becoming the
‘empty shell of an exiled population. Allow the utmost for
partiality, that effort to grapple with a Plague-city must have
been as energetic as it was novel.
3. The Theory.— Unconditional Altruism.
Cyprian's mode of organizing had this merit and this
ruling spell, that he took those who were to be organized into
his full confidence. He filled them with the ideas which had
carried himself to the point of action, ‘II parle, il parle
beaucoup, il fait tout ce qu'il a dit' was the witty description
of a novel diplomacy which converted 'ovince into am
empire. It was in the highest sense of that description that
Cyprian educated his followers into the schemes of duty
which rose before him.
We may look on his little treati ‘Letter,’ as Augus-
tine calls it, ‘OF WORK AND ALMS-DEEDS, as the expansion
? Ep. 66, 4 *Siquis tenet possidet.
de bonis Cecili Cypriani Epise
Christianorum '— quoted from the d.
ment referred to in £j. 50. 6 *adplicito
NLIS THE THEORY. ALTRUISM. 247
echo perhaps of that last speech of his on the approach of the
plague. It is an unreserved statement of the Theory which
he carried through without reserve. The strokes which were
falling on the Christians turned the affluence of many into
poverty. Yet such strokes were partial in their effect, and
left many untouched. So too the horrors of Pestilence do
not bring the same universal impoverishment as Famine; and
even Captivities and Confiscations had only their selected
victims. There were patrimonics still; there were old hoards
of bullion, which it was time to unlock to the thronging
misery ; there were matronly jewelleries and all the extrava-
gances of fashion; the barrenness, the dulness, the darkness
of wealthy luxurious life oppressed the mind’. It was a time
to build any freshly gained ideas into the social code, and
his own splendid use of wealth gave him a right to utter
them.
Christ then had treated the sacrifice of wealth as a note of
enrolment in His supernatural society, as a grade in perfection,
asa reality which would accompany the soul into immortality*.
Christ had not merely overlooked mundane considerations.
He had personally pledged Himself to convert losses so
incurred into gain, and faithless gains into loss. He had
charged Himself with the anxieties of the liberal ; in short for
‘His followers He had identified Himself with Providence*.
Socially He had declared Himself to be the new power in
the world for the elevation of the masses; He had minutely
described how in the close of the world’s history He will
look back on efforts made for the amelioration of their
conditions‘. ‘
Domestic claims cannot really compete with the needs of
the poor; both the interests and the characters of Christian
families are best provided for by practical demonstrations of
1 De Opere εἰ Eleemorynis 1113; ! De Ov et E, 9, το.
Je 183 33. * De Ὁ. « E. τό, 25.
? De O, αἰ B. 5, 8 τὴν
248 EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY. -
real faith in immortal recompense, in daily providence, in
the fatherhood of God’.
Once more the whole theory of Christian worship, center-
ing as it does on the Eucharist, is nullified for the rich and
selfish. Without personal sacrifice there can be no union with
the Divine sacrifice. What an irony to see a gorgeous lady
before an altar receiving her communion out of the offerings
of the poor*.
In a nearly contemporaneous letter Cyprian represented
Christian endurance by metaphors almost overbold, as a
gladiatorial combat. fought for crowns before Emperor and
Casar. He now carries his figure farther. The wealthy who
will bestow his means in supporting such combatants is like
the Munerarius*—the man of rank or ambition who lavishes
a fortune to provide a worthy spectacle. With a Goethesque
audacity Satan himself is introduced to confront the throned
Christ. He points out the glorious shows which his servants
ruin themselves to exhibit with unfruitful unselfish splendour
in his honour. ‘Where, O Christ, he sneers, ‘are your
'Munerarii? Where your capitalists, who will do even self-
“remunerating works on such a scale upon your principles,—
‘either through gratitude for your loving Passion, or in hope
‘of your bright reward?’
But our account of the motives for generosity which Cyprian
expands before the Church, would not be complete without
his peculiar and less satisfactory development of the relation
of Almsgiving to Sin. Not only do prayer and fasting lack
substance and reality apart from such alms and work*, but
when past sinfulness has been obliterated by the blood of
Christ in Baptism, the effectiveness of that Baptism is pro-
longed and subsequent frailties continually abolished, through
1 De Q. et E. 16, 30.
* DeO. at
+ Ep. 58 * plebi Thibari consistent.”
* Note the popular word invented by
VI. π. 340
the maintenance in all its freshness of the state of mind in
which we leave the font by a constant flow of working and
Almsgiving* There can be no better illustration than this
teaching (in which a distinct propitiatory value is assigned to
our own action) of the combined results, in the development
of doctrine, of resorting to the Jewish Apocrypha, relying on
ἃ Version, and constructing a theory from a word*. When
this thread of erroneous, or at least ambiguous, theory
was presently after woven in with Tertullian's new forensic
language on satisfaction being made to God by penance’,
ἃ commencement of much medieval trouble was made.
On the other hand for this very treatise the first Council
of Ephesus was grateful, when they could quote, with
other ‘chapters’ from the Fathers, against the confusions
of Nestorius‘ its clear-toned opening ‘The Sent Son willed
to be the Son of Man,
And Augustine with quite a burst of love brings up its
eloquent truths as against the Pelagian thought that some men
jn this life are sinless. ‘So didst thou teach, so didst thou
admonish, incomparable teacher and glorious witness’,
RESENTMENT,
IL
Resentment.
Such was the preparation which the Christians of Carthage
were receiving for their conflict with the misery of a heathen
* De Ὁ. εἰ δ. τ᾿
* Such are most distinctly the sources
οἵ the idea—Sieut τσ (4, Baptism)
‘eatinguet igoem (ie. gehenna) οἷς elec-
mosyna extingwer peccatum (Slrach iii.
geh. and again Prov, xvi. 6 *Mise-
dicordia et veritate redimitur iniquitas "
(av. 27 ‘per misericordiam et fidem pur-
gantur peccata )), which in the African
version waa * Eleowerynis «t fide delicta.
pungantur’—De Q. d £. 2.
3. De Pruitentia 6.
* Labbe, vol. 1Y., p. 67 (202), Ade
481. t was read again at the second
Council a.. 449, and again at Chaloe-
don a.m. 451, ἀῤῥά, p. 1134. Vincent.
Lirin. Common. 11. 30
? Out of this short treatise Augustine
quotes part of its third chapter twice, viz.
in Contra duar opp. Pelagg. B. 1v. c. x-
27, and Contra Julien. Polag. B. V. c.
viii. ; part of ch. i, Centra dr bh
250 EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
city. Meantime the rancour of its population which had laid
wars and drought and pestilence at the door of the tolerated
Christians found a more emphatic voice than usual in the
utterances of am aged magistrate, Demetrian After having
been freely admitted in the character of an enquirer to Cy-
prian's house, he was now, with one foot in the grave, acting
on the tribunal the part not merely of a harsh enforcer of
the penal statutes, but of an ingenious inventor of tortures.
He was open to the further suspicion of having himself put
the most exciting imputations against the accused into cir-
culation’.
‘The indignation raised by cruelty and injustice and the
‘desire of having it punished, which persons unconcerned—
‘and ina higher degree those who were concerned—would feel,
‘is by no means malice. It is one of the common bonds by
* which society is held together...a weapon put into our hands
“by nature... which may be innocently employed....one of the
‘instruments of death which the author of our nature hath
* provided....not only an innocent but a generous movement
*of the mind....a settled and deliberate passion implanted in
‘man for the prevention and remedy of wrong*/
It is thus that Butler characterizes Resentment. It is thus
that Cyprian exemplifies it, as precisely as if his words had
been weighed to comply with the philosopher's subtle and
original distinction,
‘We may hate no man.’ ‘Odisse mom licet mobs He
could know no greater joy than that Demetrian should be
partaker of his own blessing, but ‘he makes a way for his
1 Sub ipso exitu, ad Demetr. 25; His power d Me otha i
cum frequenter ad me venires, 1; novas "
peenss, 1; quos ta forsitan concitasti,
2-—Confiscation, chains, execution,
the circus and fire (cf, Tert. ad Scap. — ves ἢ
4*cremamur’) were all in vogue against — * Bishop Batler, Sermon vni. Ow
Christians at this time. 4d Dametr.
erentiment.
12, Pearson exposes the older E ? Ad Demetrian. 25.
ment that Demetrian was proconsul.
VI τι, RESENTMENT. 251
indignation.’ So long as Demetrian had ' bayed and raved at
God' it would have been ‘an casier, lighter effort to beat
‘rising waves back with shouts than to curb such fury by
*accost, but it is time to speak when a double and triple
injustice is perpetrated with every accompaniment of cruelty.
Tertullian had in his day confronted a persecutor’, Strange
to say, in this one instance ‘The Master's’ spirit is more
gentle than the gentle prelate's. There are points of contact
shewing the appeal to Scapula to have been studied by the
author of the appeal ‘to DEMETRIAN. In both we have the
Temonstrance against the suppression of the One Natural
Worship ; both point to the quietude of the prevailing Sect*;
to the power of their prayers in exorcisms and of their
suffering example in conversions. But here the resemblance
ends. Tertullian's exordium is almost affectionate; he has no
denunciations; no word of the Eternal Doom of persecutors
nor of the new philosophy of Divine Probation. He is mainly
‘occupied with relating warnings that have befallen severe
governors, and blessings that have attended lenient judges
and ratified Christian Prayers. The aim of Cyprian is quite
different and much wider. Demetrian and he represented
face to face the popular and the new or advanced answers to
the question, *Whence all this political and all this physical
misery?’
The Heathen cry was, ‘The progress of Christian opinion
‘is refusing to the immortal gods the institutions which ac-
‘knowledge and represent them,—temple, pageant, art, drama,
‘circus, arena, private homage, oath, vow, even incense and
*blood; all that we know of sacred is to them execrable; the
‘game opinion denies to our human constitution its own satis-
‘factions, its own necessities,’ ‘Nature is chastising our
"tolerance of the unnatural.’
The new reply is very grave, For Cyprian too nature and
3 dd Scapulam, ad Scag, 23 nimius et copiosis noster
? Pars pene major cajusque civitatis, — populus, ad Dvmuetr. 17.
252 EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
humanity were at present dark of aspect. But his explana-
tion of the phenomena of suffering was threefold. First, he
believed that on general grounds a decrepitude of universal
life, corresponding to that of individual objects, must be
expected and is begun. The opinion of the old age of the
world, which Columella so long since had rejected’, gained
ground with the decline of virtue. Christians in particular
fancied that it accorded with their then scheme of prophecy.
This was a hypothesis more obvious, in the silence of
economics, than to trace the decay of enterprise, of pro-
duction, of art-skill* to the universal expulsion of free labour
by slave labour, the artificial appreciation of corn, and the
consolidation of real property in hands incredibly few.
‘The second answer regarded political convulsions These
Cyprian concurred with his antagonist in regarding as divine
judgments—and upon impiety.
But impiety where? In illustration he points to the
system of slavery—to the absolute conviction which that
institution implied of the accuracy with which duty ought to
be rendered by one set of mortal lives to the other", and of
the unlimited chastisement due to disobedience. ‘Was it
“reasonable to suppose that the universal profligacy of disobe-
*'dience to acknowledged moral laws should receive no check
“from the Master of Man? or was it wonderful that civic strifes.
ii.
artibus peritis,
? Ad Demetr. 8. "This argument
shews that the idea that slavery was
unchristian had not penetrated even
Cyprian's humane nature, At the same
time bis indignation about the atrocities
shews what was coming, and he plainly
does not treat slavery as a maturo Jaz.
The passage is well worth quoting.
"Ipse de servo tuo exigis servitutem, et
Jomo hominem parere tibi et obcedire
compellis, ot cum sit vobis eadem sors
VI an. RESENTMENT. 253
‘and aristocratic savagery should beckon the Goth to the
‘frontier? That deaths should avenge an aristocratic and com-
“mercial rapacity which inflicted worse famines than nature?
‘That pestilence should linger in cities where its warnings had
‘only evoked fresh rebellions against morality'? '
Here he introduces with force a fact of which Demetrian
had already heard something—that suc scourges had been
unerringly foretold by Prophets as visitations upon σή sins,
and foretold with this remarkable supplement to their predic-
tions, that reformation would be adapted only dy the few and
scorned by the mass. ‘And yet, he finely exclaims, ‘ye
are indignant at the indignation of God*’
Thirdly. He retorts the causes of that divine indignation
in a more sounding strain— You and your courts are labour-
‘ing for the eradication of the only rational and spiritual
*worship extant; labouring to conserve the adoration of inept
‘figments and animal monsters. Full of this zeal you actually
‘invert the usages of law’ against us. But argue with us, con-
‘vince us by reason ;—or only come and listen to your own
‘demon deities confessing, screaming, flying* from our prayers,
‘Then set the unmcaning meanness of your cringing prostra-
“tions against the open-browed, manly, sensible devotions of our
‘assemblies. Do you think it conceivable that brute force should
‘move us from our position to yours? Do you doubt our
‘sincerity? The certainty of our conviction as to this world
‘and the unseen is best evidenced by our perfect acquiescence
‘in your inflictions. Vast as our numbers are in the empire,
‘we have never turned on an oppressor. The last persecution
*has indeed for our sake collapsed in the ‘crash of empire"
"when treasure, forces and camp were lost with Decius',—
*but without our act or wish. Once more our conviction is
Ὁ 44d Demeter. 10, reper. (17), bat the touches leare no
* Ad Dinar. 9. doubt of the event, The death of the
# See above, ti. 1, p 61. Decl, lnellusy. suspected penes
* Soe pe 10, n. 3.
Δ We must read ruinis rermm not
254 EXPANSION OF HUMAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
*evidenced in our acquiescence in the heavenly chastisements
‘which we fully share with you. For think you that we claim,
‘as spiritual worshippers, exemption? Surely no,—on us, with
‘our eternal trust, chastisements fall light. To us they come
‘in an aspect new-born with us into the world's thought, as a
‘probation, as a discipline of strength. In the flesh we are but
*men liable to all things human. We dwell in one house with
‘you; we fare as you do; we bear willingly what God in our
‘records said long since He must inflict for the wicked's sake,
‘Our prosperous days are not here. They are to come. For
‘you we grieve and with you, and we intercede unfalteringly
‘for your worldly happiness, But the present interruptions of
‘that happiness are not only fulfilments. They are forewarn-
‘ings also, There is in the distance a divine day; when we
‘who in this world are Re-born, and signed with a certain
‘sign in a certain blood, shall part from you, and never rejoin
‘you, The pleased tormentor of to-day must then become
‘the spectacle of the tormented", By that fear, by the abun-
‘dant time and occasion offered for your change, by all the
‘dear hopes which, as we know, centre on that change, the
‘persecuted appeal to the persecutor in his own behalf”
Such is in brief what I have called the ‘Resentment’ of
Cyprian. Throughout there is a transparent consciousness
that the struggle between Christian and Roman will ere long
be contested on more equal terms®. Already the former are
1 4d Dem, 24. Gentle as the up. — tum foit martyri, quam magnum, quam
shot of the peroration is, and in- de: cruciatibus suis non.
nitely diflerenced from the wild threat a
of Tertullian (De Spevtac.), the bitter-
ness of the sights which Cyprian knew
of, "Qui hic mor pecuvit...Cratelium
cculorum brevis fructus’ rankles 100
much here. So alo eandour cannot
pass over Cyprian's comment on the
‘threat which the fifth Maccabee hurls 24. A
at Antiochus—a comment which in this be reckoned on to discover this
century would not be possible in the — doctrine.
catholic Church "Quale illud levamen- * We may compare this with the
VI. fn 255
proud of their numbers*; already there is hope in speaking
out: already there is a conviction that the masses are ready
to hear reason: a perception that persecution is the grandest
opportunity for the missioner*,
Jeromc* has echoed a criticism of Lactantius that Cyprian
upon general grounds than by Scripture texts’,
sary to differ from the prince of critics because (1) the texts,
where used as arguments, are alleged, after description of the
tokens of Divine anger, only to shew that the visitations had
been predicted*. The argument is this. They who could
predict them might be presumed to have a key to the right
explanation of them. They did predict them as punishments
upon idolatry and oppression. This kind of exhibition of
prophecies is surely a legitimate allegation to produce before
an unbeliever, (2) It is visibly the sequel of arguments which
had been touched upon and but half developed in conver-
sations. Cyprian shews himself’ aware that Scripture texts
are not producible for every purpose. (3) Having to meet
just such unfamiliar knowledge as would have adhered to
ἃ Demetrian, Cyprian, I observe, does not once quote to
him any author of Scripture by name,—always ‘a prophet,’
‘another prophct saith,’ ‘God in the Holy Scriptures,”
The man's acquaintance with the elements of Christian
argument justifies Cyprian precisely in the ground he takes,
more passionate conviction of Tertullian
in the Dr Corona.
© Nimius et copiosus noster. populus
wleiscitur (ad Demetr. 17)-
* Quer tamen. sermonis nostri ad-
amittere credo rationem (ad Dewetr, 2).
Disceptatione vince, vince rahione (13).
* dum me christianum colors deco
et fofulo circmmitante pronantio et vos
εἰ deos vestros clara «f publica predica
Meme confundo... ad Demetr. 13.
® Rettberg, p. 266 f- taking occasion.
by Jerome and conceiving furiber an
impolicy in addressing a magistrate in
language so strong, concludes Deme-
trian to be s fictitious personage. But
the trait of his visiting Cyprian profess
‘edly to enquire, actually to declaim,
his advanced age, the peculiar mode
of citation and other slight fitnesses are
against this.
' Hoc weiss eene pranvicin (ad D. 3)
Ipsum audi loquentem (ad 2. 6).
Y Ad Demetr. 3
256 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY,
while it further verifies to us the reality of the circum-
stances.
Of the Style of the * Demetrian?
"The style of this brochure is elevated, pure and strong. Some of
the expressions finely terse and epigrammatic. ' Veneunt judicaturi^
* eus nec quaeritur nee timetur.’ ‘Quasi, etsi hostis desit, esse pax
inter ipsastogas possit^ Somewhat of a relapse Into the early floridity
is perceptible in the third and seventh chapters. Twice Cyprian
moulds a line of Virgil into his prose (Georg. i 107) 'herbis
siccitate morientibus zstuans campus’ (20), and (Georg. i. 154)
‘in agro inter cultas et fertiles segetes lolium ct avena dominetur"
(23).
UL.
The Interpretation of Sorrows.
Exercitia sunt nobis ista non funera. De Mortaéitate 16.
Difficulties which arose from i munity were
scarcely less perplexing. It seemed as if the Pestilence might
work a new lapse ofitsown. Numbers were dismayed that the
scourge of Christ's persecutors should light no less heavily on
His friends’. Others shewed the first symptoms of the fanatic
spirit, so fatal afterward to Africa, hafed when death
threatened to forestall their martyr-crow rs still liable
to be summoned to 1
preserve their faith by delud:
temptation. ‘What was the church
ly made :
wide terror of the | Plague, the: p msible for its
A. |
VL 257
existence and not exempted from new enigmas in their faith,
such a body needed indeed that some broad and Christian
view of this physical calamity should be opened before them.
The work of mercy had been organized, but to control
these cross currents of fecling required yet greater skill and
delicacy. To beard a slanderous tormentor was perhaps a
duty, but a harder one was to maintain in a people so tried
the gentleness and tranquillity of spirit, the intelligence of
devotion, the sense of unity with God which marked the line
between the Church and polytheism, In quick succession came
out three more of Cyprian's finest Essays. The topics of the
pungent pamphlet ‘on Demetrian’ are reviewed from the posi-
tive side in the encouraging address ‘on the Mortality. Then
we have the noble joyous treatise ‘on the Lord's Prayer.’
‘The later ‘Exhortation to Confession,’ a Scripture manual for
Martyrs, must be treated with these as his last teaching in
this region.
Tt was in answer to actual calls that the pen of Cyprian
THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROWS.
was thus busy amid such distractions. Few of the bishops
could make adequate answers to the questionings of the times.
The laity of the distant’ town of Thibaris entreated his pre-
sence among them. Edicts of Gallus for sacrifice had reached
them. Torture had recommenced. There and elsewhere
4 Longe, Bp. 58. 1. Unnamed by
, amd not identified until
1855 when an inscription Gri Tur-
XARIS Avausto Sackum R P Tuum
places it in the Byracene because its
bishop votes among ther provincials in
‘the Council of Carthage (Semi. Zgy.
37). Το mmy mention thar there is no.
Dil (Respublica Thibarikanorum Decreto.
Jfecurienum]) was found near where a.
small tributary of the Medjerda leaves
the hills on the south of the plain of Bulla
and of the road to Cirta, at Houckir
Hamamet. The rains of its basilica
stand out, (Tissot, pl. 18; vol, 11. p-367.)
This just in Zeugitana where Fell, p.
"by some accident places it; p. 337, be
identifies it with 7'a&ora in Mauretania
Cusariensiw Morcelli says Hardouin
B.
geographical ender of voting there. He
adds that their bishop Victorian appears
twice in the Collation of Carthage A.D.
anis Cognit το 1yg and 185. (Labbe,
vol. itl. pp. 202 and 322.) The name in
Cyprianic codices ἔν alio read Thebari-
fumer and Dhiiri. At Mobammedia,
‘once Tabaria" (7), 9 miles from Tunis,
ie, in Zeugitana, the name TAifare
has been read on a slab (Rev, Afric v.
1p 378).
17
po
258 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
congregations ceased to assemble, and the bishops to preach?.
"Their own bishop Vincent four years later was the most
fanatical of all the speakers in the Council of that date,
holding heretics to be so much worse than heathens asto need
not only Baptism, but a previous Exorcism, if they joined the
Church. At present the bishop is only alluded to as silenced.
‘The Lapsed were still unrestored, and no restoration but that
of martyrdom was yet recognised’ Harassed and unsup-
ported many Christians buried themselves in the solitudes
of the adjacent Tell, many escaped by sea. And then many
were haunted by the apprehension that a lonely death in
exile was no true confessorship of Christ.
‘The ‘urgency of affairs’ in Carthage rendered a visit from
Cyprian hopeless, But he wrote to THIBARIS an affectionate
and reassuring LETTER’, which contains in germ the scheme of
the essays which he next undertook, and some few thoughts
which he does not repeat, Had his ‘Mortality’ and his
‘Lord's Prayer’ been already composed he would have sent
them these as he sent the ‘Unity’ and the ‘Lapsed’ to the
Roman Confessors, The multiplication of practical needs for
his counsel was ever the motive of Cyprian's literary work.
In words almost identical with those of his Second Synodical
Letter, which followed immediately, having told the Thibari-
tans of the warnings which made him feel that they were but
at the beginning of sorrows, he reminded them that stages
of history which have been predicted in Scripture ought when
reached to create no difficulty to Christians. He sketched out
for perhaps the first time the full doctrine of probation, and
the preparation for a final judgment which it afforded. And
then while, as to Demetrian, he insists that endurance without
an attempt at retaliation is characteristic of the Christian life
1 Ep. $8. 4. 3 Ep. $8. 8.
?. Appropinquante jam, imo imminen-
te Galli persecutione, is Pearson's date
for the epistle (Annal. Cypr. A-D. 383, the letter March A.D. 252. By April the
ix). ‘The tortures and flight had how- council would have been planned,
VI nm. THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROWS. 250
on carth’, still the hope of cternal triumph is with real incon-
sistency heightened by the meditation of eternal vengeance.
We have no right to slur this trait of the thought of the time,
but if we think a truer lesson might have been early learnt, yet
the succession of ages which have not learnt it should impress
on us what is the hardest lesson which Christ set to man.
The Lapsed are invited to rearm, and regain their loss.
The loncliest Death for Christ is witnessed by Him, and is as
glorious as any public martyrdom. We have spoken before
of the fine image which in this letter he borrows from the
gladiators fighting and dying before the Emperor and the
Cesar. ‘A combat high and great! guerdoned gloriously
‘with a heavenly crown! That God should be our spectator!
‘should open His eyes on men whom He has deigned to
‘make His sons, and enjoy the spectacle of our contending!
*We give battle; we fight in wager of the faith; God our
‘spectator, His Angels spectators, Christ a spectator too’!
Nothing however is more eloquent than this practical
closing application of the Christian armoury from S. Paul.
'Take we also as a covering for our head the Helmet of
‘salvation, to fence our ears against the deadly Edicts, our eyes
‘from the sight of the abhorred Images ; to fence our brow that
‘the Seal of God may be safely kept on it, our lips that the
‘victorious tongue may acknowledge its Lord Christ. Arm we
‘our right hand too with the spiritual Sword—sternly to repel
‘the deathly sacrifices, that, unforgetful of the Eucharist, it may,
‘as it has received the Lord's Body, so also clasp Himself’!
From such needs then grew the address* ‘ON THE
MORTALITY! Cyprian says it is intended to fortify the more
? Quibus occidere non licet, eccidi
mecesse ext EP 58, 4
3 Ej. μὴ. ἃ. Did Cyprian know the
Carmina Sibyllina? See C. Alexandre,
Üracula Sibyliiva (1369, pp. 514).
3 Bp. 8 9
+The ‘Epistle’ as Augustine calls
Jt (Contra. sh. Epp. Priagg. αν. vili. 22
and x. 47). He cites it in six places,
Contra Julian. V1. ville 98, Op. impf.e.
Julian, Vt. xiv., Ef 217. 22, and in de
Presdestimatione Sanct, xiv. ψ as librum
..multis ac paene omnibus qul ecclesias-
ticas literas amant laudabiliter notum.
See Pearson (umal, Cyjr. AD. 252,
xvii.) on the references to it in Chron.
Fusch. and in. Possidius.
17—2
260 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY,
timid minority of his flock; and he makes tender excuse for
their misconceptions. But it served a far wider purpose.
Tt taught the teachers.
The new leading thoughts in, the Demetrian were (1) the
evidence which Prediction might afford to heathens that the
Christian interpretation was true, and (2) the idea of Probation
by trouble, as characteristic of Christianity. To his own people
he presents the converse of these thoughts. Predictions of
chastisement fulfilled are a pledge that promises of joy will
be accomplished. The idea of Probation, unrevealed to Plato,
unpreached by Cicero, is brought home now as the philosophy
of suffering, the interpretation of sorrow. Job, Tobias, Abra-
ham* are the new masters of the ruined, the oppressed, the
bereaved. One stroke of Providence effects both the Discipline
of Love and the Censure of Sin. In the present calamity, the
noisome repulsiveness of the plague deepens the trial, and
yet what pure woman, what innocent boy would not shrink
from this less than from the torturer's polluting fingers*?
(3) Cruelty and hardness have been denounced already as the
main provocations of paganism, And now ‘the service of the
‘sick, the kindness of kinsfolk, pitéfudness to sick slaves, the
*self-devotedness of physicians, these, says he, are among the
first subjects ‘which the dread and deadly-seeming pestilence
comes to look into."
The ecclesiastical belief in a speedy dissolution of the
world, the illustrations which it drew from prevailing famines
or pestilences, and the class of motives to virtue which it
suggested are sometimes treated as retrogressions in philo-
sophy, hindrances to the political efficiency of citizens, and
interferences with the Hellenic sense of ‘Beauty.’ But in
fact this belief was (as we have seen) carried into the Church
from the thought of the day, What the Church really con-
tributed was a new way of regarding that belief. The inter-
pretation which Cyprian and others proposed for universal
physical disasters excluded probably all the conceptions with
? De Mort. 19, t1. 3 De Mort. tg.
VIL πὶ, THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROWS, 261
which contemporary intellects, whether popular or cultivated,
invested these terrific crises, and to us that interpretation
offers crucial tests of whether the Church was advancing
thought and sentiment, and elevating courage, or was parting
with a glorious view of nature.
Such frightful ills were traced to one or other of about five
general causes; to a dualism of conflicting deities, good and
malevolent; to a dualism of the beneficent spirit and of matter
instinct with mechanic laws; to a necessity controlling deity
and matter alike; to fortuitous conditions and fixed sequences
in matter itself; to the personal displeasure of deity which
willed its own recognition by traditional rites and under
popular titles, although such names might not be strictly
identified with divine personalities. This last was the more
refined version of the popular creed which felt the action of
beings vindicating a right to material offerings and to the
extermination of atheists.
The despair and apathy which these belicfs engendered in
the presence of universal suffering are commonplaces with the
Greek historian and Roman poet. But the first Christian
who touches the subject is led by the Mortality into a region
of sublimity and tenderness,
On him it enforces (1) absolute confidence in a Paternal
care, which through visible correction’, through acknowledged
probation*, through resignation to yet uncomprehended
purposes®, elevates and purifies and calms.
(2) It enjoins on him utmost activity, organization, self-
devotion in the alleviation of suffering and of bereavement’,
‘These effects on Christian thought and practice are deduced
from distinctly Christian grounds,
These same grounds create in him (3) the conviction that
moral causes in society* have an effect on the conditions
3 De Mort. 18 * De Mort. 6.
3 De Mort. 1, 9 15 * De Mort. 18.
* De Mort. 11, 18.
262 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
accorded to humanity, not only immediately by the recom-
pense earned by the individual's vice or virtue, but mediately
by affecting general laws, exterior and physical, through
exercise of the moral judgment of God. Not only is a world.
in order a field for human excellence to expand on and an
external instrument for it to utilise, but a world in physical
disorder is an instrument of correction, converting selfish and
abject thoughts to interior and to wider considerations’, vivi-
fying the hypothesis of an existence independent of physical
decrepitudes*, and exciting in those who believe the divine
Fatherhood an almost emulous beneficence’, There are germs
of further social advance in Cyprian's teaching. Could it
have been demonstrated to him that pestilence is (irrespec-
tively of interposition) a direct result of the uncivilised squalor
which dogs the feet of luxury, he must have emphatically
replied by an application (not perhaps yet visible to him) of
the doctrine which underlies all his teaching. He would
have said that luxury and squalor are both expressions of
hideous moral errors. ‘Enterprise, administration, humane
intercourse, skill in arts‘! are to him the signs of an ad-
vancing, progressive, youthful world. Waste of the world's
resources, content in sordidness, disregard of natural ties,
indifference to the meanest, the crushing of small industries,
the abolition of small holdings for the sake of grazing farms
and deer forests’, arc to him so many crimes against the
world's life. And it is a familiar thought to him that there is
so exact an appropriateness in the observed consequences of
accumulating evils, that believers in Providence do not err in
calling these consequences ‘decisions’ —judicia—judgments*.
1 De Mort. 4.
* De Mort, 2, 11-26,
? De Mort. 26. alt
* Ad Dem. ἃ. Cf. dé Mort. 4,14. exclusis
5 Egentem et pauperem wem vident — latius porrigent
vcwlissperfusinigrore. de Op.et Eis. — * Cf, de Laps
—Suflocationes impotentium. commer.
"VI m. THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROWS. 263
Not the respect only but the adherence of many a heathen
was cre long compelled by the attitude of the Christians’,
and yet failures of faith there were ‘in the Home of Faith,
and their bishop marked many incredulities against ‘our
Master in believing Minds fresh from paganism took
unexpected turns. He meets them with brightness, ‘You,
“who because you are Christians expected immunity from this
* visitation, will you, as Christians, claim exemption from the
* sciroceo, from ophthalmia, from stranding ships*'—' You who
*fret to think that plague may cut you off from martyrdom,
*—know that it is not the martyr's blood but the martyr's
‘faith that God asks"
Τὸ others death was dreadful still, These then have yet
to fill their imagination with realities which they have coldly
accepted ‘Nor are we now without special helps—A col-
“league of mine, a fellow bishop, lay at the point of death. He
‘prayed for arespite. At once a young man stood at his side,
‘noble, majestic, of lofty stature and bright countenance,—no
‘eye of flesh could have endured to look on him, save eyes
*which were closing to this world. There was indignation in
*his spirit, and his voice shook, as he said “Ye fear to suffer.
*Ye are unwilling to depart. What shall I do unto you?” It
“was the voice of one who heeds not our momentary desires
“but our lasting interest. Not for himself, but for us, the
*dying man heard that.’
To this tale Cyprian adds what we may well believe, how
many times he had himself, ‘little and last’ though he was,
heard the prompting to preach publicly the glorious verities
of death’, as it comes by the will of God.
‘Let us realize what we mean by the presence of Christ,
“and the cternal society, the increasing hosts of our friends, the
1 Gentiles coguntor ut eredant. de 4 Nec enim sanguinem Deus nostrum
Mort. 15. sed fidem querit. de Mert. 17.
5: De Mort. τῷ, τος
264 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
“loved, the revered, the sainted who are there'' His voice
swells to lyric fervour, and preludes the most majestic of
odes* For him the cheering certainties of exalted life are
dashed by no pagan reminiscence, no anticipated medim-
valism. He cannot mourn the departed though much he
misses them like distant voyagers*. He cannot brook even
the assumption of black garments as a memorial of those
who wear immortal white.
‘Put the terror of death out of doors: dwell on the
Undyingness beyond it*’
It may be difficult to revive the early freshness with which
feelings and thoughts, now long grown usual, began to mingle
in the older talk along street and quay in Carthage. But it
is not hard to say whether the city and the world gained by.
the change.
The ‘EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM, or rather "ΤῸ
CONFESSORSHIP'' is a Manual of Scripture passages, con-
nected by brief remarks, and arranged under thirteen heads -
for reflexion. It was compiled five years later, after Vale-
rian's Edict for persecution, at the request of a layman,
Fortunatus by name, and it is, says the author, ‘No dis-
course, but material for discoursing*’—‘ Not a garment, but
3 De Mort, 26.
+ De Mort. 26. Ttis difficult to resist
the impression that the Cyprianic *I1lic
apestolorum gloriesws chorns, llic pro-
phetaram exsaltantinm numerus, illic
martyrum innumerabilis populus is
something more than a coincidence with
the Ambrosian "Te gloriorus aposto-
dorum chorus, te prophetarum laudabilis
ewmerwi, t€ candidatus martyrum lau-
dat exercitus" These are among those
clauses of the “Te Deum which Dr
liturgy of Jerusalem" (Diet. of Christian
Antigg., 5. σὴν. But the resemblance
here lies in the triple parallelism of the
causes, and the use of such words ss
chores and mumerun, which are not
points of the liturgy.
? Non amitti sed preemitti, ut navi-
gants solent, desiderari eos debere,
ly.
mon tam tractatum meum videar
ibi misisse quam materiam traetanti-
bus priebuisse, ad Zorfunainm, 3.
VI an. THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROWS. 265
Wool and Purple of the Lamb Himself' ready for the
weaving’,
Its purpose is to assist himself and others in preparing
persons for their Second Baptism—' the Baptism stronger in
‘grace, loftier of effect, more precious in honour—the Baptism
‘wherein angels are the baptizers, at which God and His Christ
‘are joyful—the Baptism, after which no man sins*' The very
existence of a practical little book like this answers the
question whether martyrdoms were very few and scattered.
The cheerfulness of Cyprian's own spirit appears in his infer-
ence that the very number of the sufferers shews that such
endurance cannot be over-difficult or too severe",
The place which the book has in the progress of Cyprian's
thought may be recognised. In his ‘Unity of the Church’ he
had accumulated every Scriptural illustration, apt or otherwise,
of that doctrine. In this book he developes rather laboriously
ἃ new one. The Seven Maccabees whose history he details
{as Origen does on the same subject)* are not only patterns
to individuals, but also present an image of the Totality
(Septenary) of all the Churches, their Mother being ‘the First
and the One,’ ‘the Beginning and the Root,’ that is to say
the Catholic Unity, which was founded by the word of the
Lord, and gave all Churches birth”.
Again, experience has now carried him bcyond that
flattery of Confessors which marked former years, Among
other applications to the circumstances of the time are these :
he observes (r) that when a question arose whether the
youngest Maccabean brother should save his life by an act
of conformity, no suggestion was made that the merits of the
Six Martyrs could plead for him. Again (2) in warning his
people against a resort to Lidelli, he shews that Eleazar
A Ad Fortunat. j. This metaphor — ? Ad Fortunat, 4.
mankes certain, I think, the conjecture — * 4i Foriwnat, εἰ fine
οἱ Scaliger on Tert de Monog. 7. — * Orig. Exh. ad Mart. 23.
Summus sacerdos patris et agms de Ad Kortonat. 11.
suo yestiens.’ | Codd. magnate
266 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
declined to do what all the Libellatics had done: (3) he says
the true martyrdom is in the spirit ready for martyrdom,
whether it be consummated or no; and the tract closes with
the observation that the crown which under persecution is
assigned to Martyr-warfare is in ‘time of Peace’ bestowed on
Conscientiousness.
But not even on this sensible moderation rests either
the merit of this pamphlet or the indication it gives of what
the everyday Cyprian really was like; still less on its own
assumed grounds—the nearness of the End, the Advent of
Antichrist, the accomplished skill of the Arch-enemy accu-
mulated (as it is grotesquely put) in his six-thousand-years
conflict with man’, More broad and strong are the well
conceived theses; and marvellous, considering the blankness
of all secondary aids, is the command of Scripture,
That some degree of conformity to the worship of the
vulgar may be allowed to mingle with the higher light is a
notion admitted only in churches in which a genuine struggle
with the essence of polytheism is not maintained. Cyprian
makes the very substance of the martyr-spirit to be a perfect
sense of the heinousness of Idolatry under every species,
of the aggravated ‘difficulty’ which it raises in the way of
its own forgiveness as sin, and of the necessity for absolute
genuineness in all relations with Deity.
ἃ The quaint idea is caught from Ter-
tallian, de Vel. Firgz: 1, *dlabolo,adjici-
ente cottidie ad iniqultatis ingenia." ‘The
totaling of dates in Hebrew Seriptures
gives, according to Clinton, 4138 v.c.
asa date for Adam. But the LXX.
makes it, according to Cunninghame,
5478 κις, Tulius Africanus shortly
before Cyprian’s time had brought this
to 5500, which would make the date
of the edict of Valerian to be the
s7s7th year of the worlds “Sex millia
annorum jam poene complentur,’ ad Kors
tunat. 2, n the beginning of the fifi
century Anianus also computed $509,
and Panodorus 5403. Sulpicius Seve-
rus, who brings his history down to AD.
400, also has ‘Mundus a Domino con-
stitutas est abhinc annos jam prene sex
Hla! Chron.i. a. The significance
‘thousand years! lay in the
belief, which, until the time
' gone by, coloured and usually
distressed the Christian mind, as to the
week of milleunia and the consummation
of all things. See Lactantius Div. Just.
‘vil, τῷ and the citations in notes there.
And see Clinton FX. v. 1L pe 20,
VI. tv. ‘ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.
267
The next most important themes of this text-book are
that probationary aspect of suffering, which his mind had
long realized; the certainty of a supporting Providence, and
faith as the measure of the support it yields.
IV.
Intelligent. Devotion,
‘On THE LORD's PRAYER. It was not enough to arm
the confessor, to nerve the timid, to silence the calumniator.—
Common life needed building up. Cyprian saw no nearer or
better road to edification than to fill with intelligence the
universal Devotion. The recitation of the Prayer of Christ
might become mechanical even when times of trial call it
not unfrequently to the tongue, They who have seen abroad
great naves empty for noble vespers and crowded for the
rosary may thence draw the nearest notion of what antient
'Battology' was with its lullaby of spiritual contentment’.
The Essay ON THE LORD'S PRAYER is written with precision
and with a visible delight. The freshness of his thoughts,
the sweetness of his words, the fulness and fitness of his use
of Scripture are a delicate fruit indeed to have been pro-
duced under the flaming heat of controversy, amid the whirl
of organization, in the atmosphere of -a plague-stricken city*,
There are points where the commentary very closely touches
both the historic facts and the spirit of which the facts were
aproduct. We sce too how the little treatise both enshrined
and Dr Salmon's articles Africawus
and. Zanodorus, in Dict, Christ, Biogr.
? Matt. vi. 7.
* Mgr. Freppel (p. 341) says well in
comparing this with Tertallian's treatise
‘On the Prayer..'une onction douce
εἰ pénétrante, une nature plus ouverte
aux impressions de la plété donnalent
av disciple un avantage sur le maftre,
dans un sujet ob la cceur doit parler
de préférence A l'esprit; although some
of the Master's most famous and stir.
ring words are found in that treatise,
and few passages of spiritual poetry can
exceed his last two sections.
Bot it is curious to note how ho not
only omits the word ‘noster’ but, I
think, forbears to dwell anywhere on
the fura character of the peayer which
means so much to Cyprian.
268 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
and foreshadowed some of the most beautiful phrases of
familiar liturgy.
The special development from the words * Our Father? of
the essential character of Unity and of the inexpiableness by
martyrdom of the stain of schism incline me to place this
Essay in date close to that ‘On Unity,’ which in almost the
same words states conclusions which only four years later
Cyprian expresses in quite other language’.
In applying the petition for Bread to the Daily Eucharist
the author dwells on the danger of those from whom it is
withheld"; ‘martyrdom’ or confessorship is a familiar thing; it
is also a temptation to arrogant assumption*. These thoughts
mark the very crisis of the time,
The recommendation to ‘every single man to prepare
himself to surrender worldly wealth’ comes with a special
force from one who was parting with his all*.
It is the time too when the idea seems ever present to his
spirit by which he nerved himself and the rest to meet ‘the
Mortality'—the inborn power of Christian sons to resemble
the Divine Father—a sonship and a resemblance wrought
through Baptism. ‘We ought to know that when we call
* God “ Father” we ought to live as if S
‘ought to be like our Father'—' What He made us by Second
‘Birth such He would have usas τί born, t
‘of water and Spirit’
Respondere Natalibus.
etiamsi oecist
"ictum est quod nec baptismo xonrwinir
potest abiui! quale crimen ext quod
martyrio non potest expiari /’
«“. em
Viiv. ‘ON THE LORD'S PRAYER! 269
The Essay of Tertullian on Prayer has been the model
after which Cyprian worked, although in the freest manner.
Saint Hilary, while he omits to comment on the Lord’s
Prayer in the course of the fifth chapter of S. Matthew,
preferring to send his readers to Cyprian's Essay, does justice
"Tertullian's ‘most apt volume,’ regretting that the unhappy
position of its author—the later aberration of the man'—
should have prejudiced its acceptance’.
Its method and interpretations have been followed by
Cyprian into a mysticism unusual to him. And indeed,
where Tertullian had only taught that we should, besides the
Morning and Evening Prayers, pray thrice daily as debtors
to THE THREE, Cyprian has a mystical expansion upon the
perfect trinity of the Three ‘Hours’ with their three-hour
intervals—‘a sacrament of the Trinity which was to be re-
vealed in the last days,’ and this is the earliest passage in
which the Latin word ' Trinity’ occurs in this sense’,
What effect Tertullian's book had taken in the interval
between is traceable in the difference of the correctives
employed. It is still indeed necessary to check the ‘ umud-
tuous loguacity’ of persons praying aloud ‘when we assemble
with the brethren and celebrate the Divine Sacrifices with the
Priest of God, but several superstitions have disappeared,
which Cyprian could not have failed to rebuke had they still
prevailed. Such was the practice of washing the hands before
prayer" in strange commemoration of Pilate's surrender of the
Lord ; the putting off of the woollen cloak‘ at the same time;
2 Hilar. ἐν Αναν. v. 1. is where ‘Theophilus of Antioch A.n.
4 By Tertull. adv. Prax. 2, 3,41 isnot 180 (ad Aulolyeh. fi. c. 93) calls the frst
applied a» a name of Deity though the — three days of creation before the emet~
eoe spproaches it. In the 7th council gence of the sun and moon an emblem
(^D. 256) Eucratius of Thema use οἵ the Trinity.
it in the distinctest manner in his — * Sec Tert de Oraé, 1.
phrase "arphemia. Trimiatis; Seu. + The penula, φαινύλην oc deem.
Epp. 39. The earliest Greek use of Ἐριάν
270 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
the sitting down after prayer in imitation of Hermas’; the
disuse of the Kiss of Peace when fasting, and the abstaining
from the Liturgy on Fast days. The disuse of veils by
maidens bad continued, as we have seen. It was also pro-
bably still a question whether it was correct to kneel on the
Sabbath, although Cyprian does not notice it. If we consider
these ritualistic questions of the Early Church, we need
scarcely despair of our own working their own solution.
It is characteristic of the tempers of the two authors that
Tertullian hailed the Confusion of the Nations as a phase
of the Kingdom to come. Cyprian omits this, and, while
his note on the second word of the Prayer is his well-known
beautiful phrase ‘To us, prayer is of the people, and is
common to all,’ Tertullian who comments on S. Matthew's
form of the prayer, here, with 5, Luke, drops the word ‘Our’
and does not even allude to it.
Although in reading Cyprian's treatise after his ‘Master's’
a softened echo of strong words is audible, and the writing
out of his riddling epigrams in limpid sense is frequent and
deliberate, there is little transcription, as in earlier days, of
sentence or phrase. The Scriptural illustrations alone shew
markedly the originality of Cyprian's work in a point in
which it must have been actually difficult to avoid repetition.
Tertullian quotes about sixty places, and Cyprian seventy,
and of these latter only about seven seem to be suggested
by Tertullian's use of them’, Even these are differently
rendered into the vernacular*.
? Tertull. de Orat. 16. Herm. 'Avo-
κάλυψε d — ΤΙροσευξαμένου pov... καὶ nal
σαντον.
? Ze, judging by the marginal refer-
| autem me spre-
ences and doing the best one may with
_ MI. 93, 9, np. Tert. de Orat.
Gbler's indices, which for inaccuracy
almost rival Dr Kouth's However
Das Neue. Testament Fertullian’s of
Roensch appears to bear out the state:
ment.
me quem in terris patrem vocem mii
quem habemus in caelis; ap. de Dea.
Üvat. 9, ne vocemus nobis patrem in
terra, quod zci/icst nobis unus pater qui
estincels — Mt. 26, 41 (Lue. 22. 46),
VIL 1v.
Both give and comment upon the third petition as * Thy
will be done in heaven (the heavens) and in earth, which
form also, Augustine says, was more in use, and to be found
in a majority of manuscripts’. Accordingly neither annotator
finds in this clause any reference to either angelical or physi-
cal order. They are obliged to understand heaven and carth
as symbols for spirit and flesh within us, or again for
heavenly and earthly-minded men.
Cyprian expands and somewhat dilutes Tertullian's
splendid phrase, ‘ We are heaven and earth’ He closes
thus, ‘At Christ's bidding we pray; and we ask that we
‘may make our prayer be to the salvation of all, that as
*God’s will was done in heaven—that is in us through our
‘faith, that we might belong to heaven; so God's will may
*be done also in earth—that is in them, on their believing’;
‘that so they who are by their first birth earthy may begin
“τὸ be heavenly by being born of water and of the Spirit."
‘ON THE LORD'S PRAYER,’
a
ap. Tert. di Orat. 8, orate ne tempte-
mini; de Dea, Orat. gie =
lemptationem. — Aft. 1R. 32,
de Orat. 7, dominus debitum remisit; s
de Dew, Orat. 13, dimissum sibi...omne
debitum. Aft. 6.34, ap. Tert, de Orat, 6,
"nolite de crastino cogitare y ap. de Dua,
Orat. 19, nolite in crastinum cogitare.
For £e. 23.42, ap. Tert. de Orat. 4, Pater,
transfer {ταρενόγκαι, om. εἰ βούλει) po-
culum istud (om. dx" ἐμοῦ], nisi quod mea.
non sed tus fiat voluntas. de Dre. Orat.
14 puts together Aff, 26. 39 Pater, si ficri
potest, transeat a me calix iste, with Se.
τὰς 36 (ref. om, by Hartel) verum tamen
mon quod ego volo sed quod tu vis ("ANA’
οὐ τί, Mi πλὴν beds). — Jo 4-.93.ap-
Tert. de Orat. 28, veniet hora cum veri
adoratores adorabunt patrem in spiri.
fet veritate; ap. de Des. Orat, 3 (ref.
om, by Hartel), boram venire quando
wer adorxtores adorarent, &c. — Je.
6. gh, ap. Tert. de Ora. 4, non suam
sed patris facere se voluntatem; ap.
de Dea. Orat. 14, hon descendi de cxlo
ut faciam voluntatem meam sed volun-
‘tate ejus qui misit me.
To illustrate panis. cottidianus Tert.
de Orat. 6 quotes Fo. 6. 33, 35, and αν
Des, Orat. 18; Fe. δ. δι. Abraham is
Tertullian's of * probation,’ de
reci Job is Cypeian's, de Dea. Orat.
"ag de domo forses ik δ. P. Saba
tier, Zu. Sew. Lat Vers. Antig.
Reims, 1743—49, Y. Yl p. 33 says
that Cyprian has “εἶσαι᾽ like all other
authorities except Tertullian, Bat this
isa mistake due to the text of all the
printed Cyprians in his time All the
great Mss, have ‘fist voluntas tua in
φαῖο ef in term. de Dur. Orat. 14.
? See de Dea. Orat. c. 17 In terra,
boc est in illia. credentibas." Hartel,
under a explained more
fully below (Nate em Characteristics,
re), changes the unvarying reading
into ‘credere nolentibus,"
272 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
The clause ‘Lead us not into temptation’ is explained by
Tertullian as ‘Suffer us not to be led’! and without a hint
of the genuine form Cyprian uses the Master's gloss as his
own text of the prayer. Apparently he was the first, though
not the last to do so; and it illustrates his excessive love of
lucidity. Augustine notices his reading, and observes ‘and
thus do some pray'—among them probably his revered S.
Ambrose; and he adds that he ‘had nowhere found this in a
Greek Gospel, but that it was in many Latin manuscripts of
Africa*.
From his words on ' Deliver us from Evil*' it is not clear
whether he gives Et a personal sense—The Evil One. ‘4
* Malo—we comprise all adversities which the Enemy devises
*against us in this world’; ‘We ask God's protection against
' Evil ; that gained, we stand quiet and guarded against all
*works of Devil and World It looks rather the other way.
But scarcely so if we take into account his previous words on
the clause about Temptation, 'Here is shewn that the Foe
*hath no power against us, except first God give him leave,
*that so all our fear, devotion and observance may turn
*toward God, seeing that 74e Evil One (Malo) hath no licence
! 4d est nc nos patiaris induci ab eo
wtique qui temptat. Tert. de Orat. c.
Trish), centt, vill, bu, J. Wordsworth.
wai
and H. Now. T. 1. xl, xil.
S, Elsewhere only Ne nos inducns. de
Pug in ἔων.
? De Dea, Orat.
AN. Tat. Tertullian's, p. 6co. His re-
ferences are taken from Sabatier.
?. Aug. de dono perzeu. vi. y, Sabatier
(ef. cit.) gives it thus as his text of the
Versio Antiqua of S, Matt, vi, 13 from
the Colbert Ns. (c.cent.xil., Paris, Fonds
Lat.a$4)in the form "ne passus nos fueris
induci! and from the second S, Ger-
main (cent. ix. or x. g. 3, Fonds Lat.
13169) and the S. Garien ws. (cent.
ix», Paris) as * ne patiaris nos induci."
[Ne patiaris nos induci," Book of Ar-
magh and the Rushworth Gospels (also
65] Sabatier cites this latter form
also from Amobius, de Deo Tring,
S. Ambrose, de Sacram, Us ve
|. 337 2 385 c, and S. Augus-
tine, 1. ii. de Seem, Dom. in my. cole
306 a, 312 a who treats it ax an em
bodied explanation (videlicet exponen
tes} and who himself constantly uses
inferas. J. Wordsworth, OM Lat, Bibi.
Texts, V, p. vx, xxvi. deseribes go 2 ax
not really an Old Latin ats. but a yul-
gate text interpolated or mixed, and ©
as more distinctly an Old Latin Ws.
[They here represent both Ambrose and
the older Africans?
* De Den. Orat. 27. Ch ἀρ.
VI ww. ὋΝ THE LORD'S PRAYER.
‘in the matter of temptations, except power be given him
‘from God,..and power is given to tte Evil Owe (Malo)
‘against us according to our sins (Is. xlii 25), and again
'"the Lord stirred up Satan” (1 K xi. 23,) “an adversary,
** Rezon,” against Solomon himself '/
The fulness and the value of this Essay to Church thought
are well illustrated not only by Hilary's estimate of it, but
‘by the practical account to which it was soon turned.
A century and three-quarters later* the monks of Adru-
metum were affected with Pelagian leanings, Three of them
visited Saint Augustine and spent Easter with him. As
evidence of what catholic doctrine really was, he read them
this book, and recommended the study of it to the Monastery,
which possessed a copy of it. By it, he says, 'as by some
‘invincible dart were transpierced heretics who were yet for to
“come!
Of the three points which catholic truth held fast against
Pelagius he found two distinctly laid down in it, (1) That
all holiness is a free gift of the grace of God, and (2) That
actual sin is committed by the holiest of men. For Cyprian’s
exposition, Augustine shews, sets forth how gifts of grace
are to be sought for them that have none, and power to
persevere for those who have received them.
The third point (3)—That all men are originally sinful—
he shews to have been catholic from Cyprian’s Epistle to
Fidus.
The freedom of that Epistle and of this Treatise from
technical language (even the expression original sim not oc-
curring in them) vouches for their early date. No fabricator
could have extricated himself from terms in which all around
him clothed their thoughts. Augustine, with all his fluency
and ease, could never have so expressed himself, and as his
conceptions hardened and narrowed in his years of contro-
1 De Dea, Orat. 25, AD. 497, Aug. Bf ccxv.
» 18
274 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ἘΝΈΚΟΥ,
versy* his own language and that of his contemporaries be-
came too rigid to allow their ideas to be expressed as once
they had been. Yet whilst the phrascology familiar since
that controversy is wholly wanting, nothing can exceed the
strength and depth and definiteness with which (as brought
out by Augustine's analysis) one truth breathes from every
line—that truth tacitly so forgotten in ever new forms of
error—' That all things which relate to character, by which
' we live rightly, are to be asked of our Father in heaven, and
‘that to presume on (the strength of our) frec-will is to fall
‘from grace,’ This is but a solitary instance however of the
importance of literal and accurate exposition. No less than
thirteen times® in his treatises against Pelagians is Augus-
tine able to cite this one small work of him whom, in his
high spirits, he calls ' victoriosissimus Cyprianus.
Lastly. The simplicity of its thought as well as of its
diction seems fraught with hints for the preacher as to the
true method of doctrinal teaching. As to its substance may
we not hope that we are ourselves somewhat nearer to Cyprian
than to Augustine? Atleast we recognise how much of spiri-
tual conflict and misery might have been spared if only the
early recognition had lasted on that all good is of God ‘the
Father of lights, that ‘all holy desires,’ even in their first stir,
‘proceed from Him,’ that all works ‘pleasant’ to Him are
wrought by the grace of Christ and the infusion of His Spirit,
that His presence and action are essential to every existence
even which we can believe to be real and substantive; that
only that subsists which subsists by Him.
4 See Dr W. Bright's Inuoduction ἢ In the Benedictine Index (Venet,
to Slee Anti-Feiggion Treatises of 1738) add these references: 486 d, 815,
St Augustine, 836.
TABLE
SHOWING THE VERBAL DEBTS
το
TERTULLIAN
IN
CYPRIAN'S TREATISE
DE DOMINICA ORATIONE.
18—2
276 TABLE SHEWING THE VERBAL DEBTS TO TERTULLIAN
TABLE shewing the verbal debis to Tertullian
Tertullianus de Oratione.
XVIL Deus autem non voeis sed cordis auditor est.
The rest of the chapter of Cyprian strongly, but hardly verb-
ally, resembles Tertullian.
me ipsis quidem manibus sublimius elatis sed temperate ac probe elatis
[oed gu. levatis], ne vultu quidem in audaciam erecto,
Justificatior pharisico procacissimo discessit.
* Dominus". . praecepit ne quem in terris patrem vocemus nisi quem habemus
in cadis.
hoc est quod Israeli exprobratur.. (Es. i. 2). . et oblitos patris denotamus.
non quod deceat..quasi si sit et alius de quo. . nisi optemus, , Ceterum
quando non sanctum et sanctificatum est per semet ipsum nomen dei cum
ceteros sanctificet ex semet ipio?...ld petimus ut sanctificetur in nobis
qui in illo samus,
VENIAT QUOQUE REGNUM TUUM,..in nobis scilicet, Nam deus quando non
regnat?...mmgni dominic! repriesentatio,..optamus ..non dintius servire.
petlmus fieri voluntatem ejus. .. Que ut implere possimus, opus est Dei
voluntate.
Dominus quoque cum substantia infirmitatem carnis demonstrare.
jam in sua carne voluisset, Pate
datus, Nisi quod mea non sed tua fiat voluntas (I
et et illa Dei voluntas quam Dominus administravit praedicando, operando,
sustinendo.
x interpretatione figurata. carnis et spiritus mos sumus exlum et terra...
sensus petitionis ut in nobia fiat voluni
etincelis. Quid autem Deus vult q
IN CYPRIAN'S TREATISE DE DOMINICA ORATIONE. 277
dn Cyprian's Treatise De Dominica Oratione.
Cyprianus de Dervinies Oratione.
quia Deus non vocis sed coriis auditor est.
non adlevatis in cxlum inpudenter oculis nec manibus insolenter erectis.
cum sibi pharissus placeret sanctificari hie magis meruit.
Dominus. - precepit ne vocemus nobis patrem in terra quod scilicet nobis unus.
pater qui est in coelis.
qua vox Judmos etiam perstringit et pereutit. . (Jo. vii. 44 ; Esai. 1, a). in
quorum exprobrationem . . quia cum dereliquerunt.
non quod optemus Deo ut sanetificetar orationibux nostris, sed quod petamus
A Deo ut nomen ejus sanctificetur in nobis. Ceterum a quo Deux sanctifi-
catur qui ipse sanctificat2 ...Id petimus et rogamus ut qui im baptismo
sanctificati sumus in eo quod esse ccepimux persevereraus.
regnum etiam dei reprosentar nobie petimus..*nam Deus quando non
regnat " . . at qui in seculo ante servivimus postmodum . , regnemus.
mam Deo quis obsistit quominus quod vellt faciat? sed quis nobis a diabolo
obsistitur quominus per omnia &c.
quic ut fat in nobis ‘opus est Dei voluntate, id est ope ejus et protections,
quia nemo suis viribus fortis est, sed ἃς.
Dominus infirmitatem hominis quem portabat owtendems ait, Pater, id fieri
potest transeat a me calix iate, et... addidit dicens: Veruntamen ἃς. (Mt.
xxvi, 39 with Me. xiv. 36),
voluntas autem Dei est quam Christus et fecit et docuitythen follows on
extremely beautifel passage, Cyprian'e own.
cum corpus « tera οἱ spiritum possideamus e colo ipsi *terra et celum
sumus' et in utroque, id est et corpore et spiritu, ‘ut Dei voluntas fiat”
eramus ...hoe preeammr et in celo et in terra voluntatem circa nos Del
fieri : quia luec ext voluntas Del ut. ++
petimus. ..ut quomodo in celo, ld est in nobis, per fidem nostram voluntas
Dei facta est ut essemus e coelo, ita et In terra, hoc est in ilis credentibus,
fiat voluntas Dei.
quod potest et spiritaliter et simpliciter intellegi, nam panis vite Christus est,
εἰ panis hic omnium non eit sed noster est... quia Christas eorum qui corpos
jus contingimus panis ex. Hunc autem panem dari nobis cottidie postu-
lamus ne qui in Christo sumus et cucharistiam cjus cottidie ad cibum
salutis. accipimus .... abstenti et non communieanter...2 Christi eorpore
separemur,
278 TABLE SHEWING THE VERBAL DENTS TO TERTULLIAN
Vi
illius hominis, qui provenientibus fructibus ampliationem horreorum et longue.
securitatis spatia cogitavit, is ipsa nocte moritur.
eonsequens erat, ut observata dei liberalitate etiam clementiam ejus pre-
caremar. Quid enim alimenta proderunt, si illis repatamur revera quasi
taurus ad victimam ?
misi donetur exactio ; sicut illi servo dominus debitum remisit .. Idem servus.
ss tortori delegatur.
adjecit ad plenitudinem tam expedite orationis... Ergo respondet clan
sula...
compendiis pauculorum verborum quot attínguntur...Quid mimm? Deus
solus docere potuit quomodo se vellet orari. Ab ipso igitur ordinata religio
orationis &c.
«Dei sermo. . Jesus Christus dominus noster nobis discipulis Novi Testa-
menti novam orationis formam determinavit. [Cyprian drops the am-
biguous phraseology about Christ being Det Spiritur.]
observatio etiam horarum quarumdam . . . que diei interspatia. signant tertia
sexta nona quas sollemniores in scripturis invenire est. Primus spiritus
sanctus congregatis discipulis hora tertin infusus est. Petrus qua die
visione communitatis omnis in illo vasculo expertus est, sexta hora
orandi gratia ascenderat in superior. .ut quod Danieli quoque legimus.
legitirnis orationibus qus sine ulla admonitione debentur
ingressu lucis ac noctis.
NOTE ON THE CHARACTERISTICS AND
On the Characteristics and Genuineness of the De
Dominica Oratione,
Ir has been contended that the treatise ‘Of the Lord's Prayer’ is later
than Cyprian, on grounds which I hope to extricate fairly from the dis-
cursive handling the question has received. The reply might be scarcely
worth making but for the interesting characteristies which come out by
the way.
It has been alleged
1. That the treatise betrays an acquaintance with the commentary of
Chromatius of Aquileia who died about 406 A.D.
II. That its language on ‘Daily Bread" is more ‘Sacramental’ (i) than.
that of Chromatius, (ii) than that of Gregory Nyssene or Chrysostom, who
probably represent the prevailing view of the fourth century,
than is consistent with Augustine's doubt as to the sacramental force of
the petition!
Π|. That Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers in the sixth
century, who uses Tertullian’s treatise on the Lord's Prayer, does not
use that of Cyprian, which his predecessor Hilary had commended*,
I. On the first head, I will accept for comparison the passages, printed
after this note, from Tertullian (de Ora. c. 4), Chromatius (Tractat,
xiv. 4 im S. Matt, Ev), and Cyprian (de Dea, Orat. 14—17), on the
words ‘Fiat Voluntas Tua, &c. The selection (however undesignedly)
is an unfavourable test-passage. Resemblances are likely to be fewer on
this petition than elsewhere, since Chromatius is expounding the common
reading ‘As in heaven so in earth’ while the Africans explain their own
form ‘Thy will be done in heaven and in earth,’ The comparison how-
ever yields abundant evidence that Chromatius had studied Cyprian, not
Cyprian Chromatius. A question is put which, if accurately worked out,
would lead us right. ‘How could Chromatius, if he were making use of
* Cyprian, have escaped introducing ideas that Cyprian had taken from
1 E, J. Shepherd's Fourth Letter fo — Hone at Gratia; De dono perseverance;
Dr Maitland, 1853. Ep. 215, which accompanied his book
He further observes that if his ‘argu- — De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio; De Prir-
ments are cogent and conclusive,’ Cy-
priam becomes ‘an important witness
against many Augustinian writings.”
That is true. For example the fol-
lowing works of Augustine would be
forgeries in whole or in part—Contra
duas Episiolas Pelagianorum; Contra. e
Fulianum Pelogianum ; De Correje — Exposit. Orationis Domini.
GENUINENESS OF THE DE DOMINICA ORATIONE. 281
‘Tertullian? How account for the elimination of so much that is Ter-
*tullianistic?! The answer is that, condensed and prosaic as Chromatius
is, he does not ‘escape.’ Of the rich profusion of Tertullian's ideas
Chromatius reproduces few. But some few he has; and each one of these
has adhering to it something which Cyprian had added. Again not one
“Tertullianistic idea’ is reproduced in Chromatius which is not in Cyprian,
or without Cyprian’s stamp on it. It follows that Chromatius has been.
acquainted with Tertullian's treatise 4Aromgh Cyprian’s—at least, through
some treatise which has handled Tertullian on the same subject in the
sume manner exactly as our De Dominica Oratione does.
To confine ourselves for proof to this one short and unfavourable
1. Tertullian is shewing how it is we can sensibly fray for God's
irresistible will to be done: ‘Fiat Voluntas Tua,..non quod aliquis obsishat
guominus Voluntas Dei fiat...sed £n omnibus petimus fieri. Voluntatem.
Ejus! Cyprian generally tries to make Tertullian more elegant and more
clear. There was an inartificial imperfectness in merely repeating,
instead of incidentally explaining, the words Volwntar Dei fiat, while
the rough £m omnibus left the difficulty where it was. For the diffi-
culty lies exactly in apprehending how the Divine Will can fail to be
operative in aif. Cyprian therefore has ‘Nam Deo quis obsistit guominus
quod velit faciat 2...sed quia nobis a diabolo obsittitur guominus per omnia
noster animus adque actus Deo obsequatur, oramus ct fe/imus ut fiat ἐπὶ
nobis Voluntas Dei."
Now Chromatius comes in; takes Cyprian’s guod velit faciat ; and
whereas Cyprian, with én ommibus before him, had written fer omnia tm
nobis, Chromatius finds the fr cmaéa unnecessary, drops it; retains
(Tertuilian’s and) Cyprian's odsistere and Cyprian's eramus, but gives
of all Tertullian’s context not a syllable which is not in Cyprian. Says
Chromatius ‘Non enim quisquam est qui obsistere et contradicere Deo
possit, ne quod velit faciat...sed ut in mobit voluntas Ejus fiat onsmens!
Anyone of the slightest skill in composition sees that Cyprian is the
middle term between Tertullian and Chromatius.
2. Tertullian says God's Will is ‘that we should walk after His
discipline He says nothing about Faith or Believing, Cyprian intro-
duces it among many other points,—‘stabilitas in fide! ‘per fidem,
*credentibus/—of which last more presently. Chromatius makes it the
first point in his definition * Voluntas Dei est, ut £ofo corde ei credentes
liec quie fieri przecipit impleamus, and more. Any master of style would,
I think, pronounce that a writer working from Chromatius must have
made more distinct use of his vedere and creduliter than the book we
ascribe to Cyprian has donc. It is absent in Tertullian, oblique in
Cyprian, express in Chromatius. And it is so important that once stated.
‘it must have been re-stated,
3 Tertullian has here the truly Tertullianesque expression *ex inter-
282 NOTE ON THE CHARACTERISTICS AND
pretatione figurata earnis et spiritus nos sumus ccelum et terra? There
he leaves it, downflung for readers to think about. What did he mean by
nos? Kach individual, compounded of flesh and spirit? or the world of
carnally minded and spiritually minded men? Cyprian explains the
petition on the first hypothesis, to mean “That God's will may be done in
‘our body and in our spirit! He then gives the other alternative (potest
et sic intelligi), viz. that ‘quomodo in cielo, id est in nobis, per fidem.
nostram Voluntas Dei facta est..,ita et in terra, hoc est in illis creden-
tibus, fiat Voluntas Dei, gliding thus into an explanation of the other
meaning, ‘That they whom just before he describes as gui ndhuc erra.
sunt et wecdum celestes, Kc. may begin esse corlestes ex aqua et spiritu nati
Now both these mystical interpretations have arisen from the Africans’
form. To pray that God's Will ‘might be done in heaven’ implied to
them that Heaven was a region where it was not yet done to perfection.
Hence it could not to them (as we saw) mean the Heavenly Hosts, but
rather the highest part of man, his regenerate spirit, or else the converted.
part of the world. This interpretation could not have arisen where the
reading 'sicut in czelo’ prevailed—'caelum’ being then the region where
it is done exemplarily in contrast to earth.
How does Chromatius proceed? He has the true reading and he has
Cyprian's comment, To bim Cyprian's first alternative is out of the question.
No man could apply it to the true reading. No man could pray ‘that God's
will may be done in his flesh ar 4£ £s im Air spirit.’ He is obliged to omit
this. But the second alternative of Cyprian will fit well enough. There-
fore to his own sensible explanation as to the Angels he adds ‘Vel corte...
“ut sicut in ezelo, id est in sanctis et caZestibus bominibus, Dei Voluntas
impletur ; ita quoque in /erra, id est in bis gui mecdum crediderunt) &c.
Here again it is impossible to doubt that Cyprian is the mide term,
and that it is owing to no one but him that Chromatius has dropped the
first and true idea of what Temullian meant by making ‘heaven amd
earth? a figurative equivalent for ‘zs,’ and taken a less harsh suggestion of
what it could mean.
‘Tertullian gives his mystic rendering of 'czelum et terra’ second of
his five points on this petition, Cyprian moves it to last, There Chro-
matius has it also, and expunges the poetry which Cyprian had left in,
4 The reader has no doubt noticed a singular variant in the last
clause. Where Cyprian has ἦν sir credentibus (undoubtedly the true
reading—our three manuscripts of this treatise which are of the first order
have no negative), Chromatius has jy Ais qu£ meedum crediderunt, Iv is
something singular that just this passage should have been lighted on,
for did a shadow of doubt linger as to which was the original writer, the
evidence that Chromatius has here marked an obscurity in what was
‘defore him and avoided it by a turn of expression, would suffice to dispel
it. Clearly the two passages are not independent. Whichever is original,
the other is a copy.
GENUINENESS OF THE DE DOMINICA ORATIONE. 283
Now, no one could have misapprehended the Chromatian prayer
that ‘God's will may be done in Ais gui mecdum crediderunt No one
would have reproduced it in the Cyprianic form ‘én dir credentibus
But the Cyprianic form sigh! cause hesitation— Ut quomodo in czelo,
‘id est in nobis per fidem nostram, Voluntas Dei facta est, ut essemus e
‘cielo, ita et in terra, hoc est in illis ἐνγυήριε ιν, fiat Voluntas Dei^ Tt was
natural to see how Cyprian's participle might be misunderstood; how it
might not be perceived that by fa iéfis eredentibus Cyprian meant ‘in
* Hem (as opposed to in nobis), upon their believing, being converted or
“beginning to believe, and since at present they are wat defievers, simply
to express that one point first. Chromatius accordingly puts it into
unmistakeable form ‘qui necdum crediderunt! Augustine similarly has
explained by paraphrase the expression of Cyprian, which would have
been needless if a negative had been there Of course defore deliening,
when men ‘become heavenly,’ they are non-believers; accordingly he has
‘ite et in eis qui non credunt et ob hoc adituc terra sunt. Quid ergo
"oramus pro nolentibus credere nisi ut Deus in illis operetur et velle!?
H. Grave was actually misled as to the participia] use and inserted ondwm,
F. Morel won, as if *in illis credentibus" did or could mean *in those.
believing,’ and Hartel has given us the startling conjecture ‘in illis
credere nofentibus’—which comes indeed from Augustine, but not from
the sentence which paraphrases Cyprian.
Cyprian uses participles familiarly in this appositional condensed
way, and in the same has *culestes ex aqua et spiritu nati”
There i$ no indication that Augustine or Chromatiue missed the Latin,
like the editors ; but since no one would have altered the clear Chromatian
into the difficult Cyprianic, it is certain that Chromatias either applied to
the Cyprianic the same remedy which other creditable men hit upon, or
(if anyone thinks necdum or volentibus genuine) that he had before him
aan older text than we have a trace of, in which case Augustine, his con-
temporary, had it too, In either case our De Domimica Oratione is older
than Chromatius and was before his eyes as he wrote®,
IL, We now come to the second objection to the genuineness of
Cyprian on the Lord's Prayer—The strength of the Eucharistic lan-
guages
(i) This is admitted to be quite in consonance with the ‘other
Ὁ De Pradat. Sanct, vill. 15.
* must not drag my readers through
‘refutation of Mr Shephenl's secondary
difficulties. Can he be himself serious
when he asks us to account for Chro-
matius not having reproduced two par-
ticular passages of Tertullian?
However they are two which Cyprian
has transferred from their context to
new heads (de Ore, 3 and 5, which are
1o be found in ἦν Dro. Orat. 17 and 19).
‘There are scores of Tertallian’s ideas in
Cyprian for which Chromatius finds
n0 room. The point is, Chromatius
knows no Tertullian except what hae
been restamped by Cypeian.
384. NOTE ON THE CHARACTERISTICS AND
‘writings’ attributed to Cyprian and with ‘that of the suspicious Firmilian.”
Tf Chromatius were less strong (which is not so evident) this would not
ft that stage of thought be conclusive as to mere earliness of date.
"Christ is our Bread of Life’ ‘Our daily Communion is a daily
Reception of Him. ' We pray that we may not through the coming in
(insercedente) of any grievous sin be separated from the Body of Christ’—
a corpore Christ! separemur. Such is the Cyprianic gloss on Tertullian’s
forceful word ‘in asking daily bread we claim continuance in Christ and
undividedness from His Body’—individuitstem a corpore ejur. Now
Chromatius repeats Cyprian almost word for word, substituting jm/er-
weniente for intercedente, a word of double meaning, and feccato, as more
general, for graviore delicte, Augustine surely echoes the same gloss
when he has ‘Sic vivamns me ab illo altaré separemur? Here as before
Cyprian's place in the chain is distinct!
(ii) To pass to the "conjecture from the commentaries of Gregory of
Nyssa and Chrysostom, that in the Oriental ehurch the petition was
considered as originally intended by our Lord to express only what it
primarily means, and that such was the prevailing interpretation in the
fourth century, which probably ‘was the case in the West also."
The truth is that the fathers of the Antioch school had nothing but the
realistic explanation to offer, because they accepted Origen’s erroneous.
derivation of émovaws as meaning * Bread for our Substance,’ but rejected,
as their wont was, his spiritualised mystic view of ‘Substance’ as the
Essence of Our Being. The Bread prayed for necessarily was to them
only the Nurture of our Material Substance’.
‘The Western current of interpretation steadily kept to the rightly
derived rendering ‘Daily.’ It also never from Tertullian (our earliest
witness) onward failed to see an Eucharistic reference here. Jerome's
rendering ‘ supersubstantial' was long before it partially displaced *daily,"
but it was Eucharistic still.
‘Thus then while the Eastern view was realistic in the fourth century
only under a reaction from a mysticism far exceeding that of the West,
the view in this treatise occupies the very position which Cyprian should
occupy in the universally Eucharistic interpretation of the West.
(iii) Augustine’s view would be stated accurately thus, In his treatise
‘Of the Sermon on the Mount” he will not Zi? the petition to either
earthly subsistence or to the Eucharistic gi reasons for not con-
fining it to the latter being that Orientals do not receive It ‘daily,’ and
that Occidentals use the prayer many times a day a/ze* reception.
Nevertheless he allows this as one of the three senses which we may
combine; that which he prefers being God's Spiritual Word. Vet in
? Chromatius’ words are: ne aliquo — ? Dr Lightfoot on ἐπιούσιον, App. to
interveniente peccato à corpore Domini Fresh Revision of Nav Testament,
separemur. Thact, xiv. 5. Ῥ' 209 ἃς, (and Ed, 1872),
GENUINENESS OF THE DE DOMINICA ORATIONE. 285
three different sermons! he gives the prominence to the Eucharistic
sense. ‘The Faithful know what it is that they receive in the Eucharist”
—'so then the Eucharist is our Daily Bread.’ The handling of Augus-
tine, more analytical and yet more mystical, is distinctly in a later mood
than the simply moral tone of Cyprian,
On this head it is added? that ‘It is natural to suppose that the
‘Sacramental Interpretation [of Daily Bread], when first introduced,
‘would follow, not precede, the Primary Meaning; and when it is fourd to
‘precede it, that the stream of time had rolled farther down £«. as the
‘Primary Meaning! precedes the ‘Sacramental Interpretation ' in Chro-
marius and follows after it in the Cyprianic treatise, therefore the latter fs
alater work. This assumption would make Chromatius early indeed, for
Tertullian's authorship of his De Oratione is not disputed, and Tertullian
gives frst the Spiritual and the Sacramental sense and then what he
calls the ' Carnal' sense which is Mr Shepherd's ‘Primary Meaning.”
III. Why so late an author as Venantius Fortunatus (whose
would prove nothing as to date) does not, in his unfinished treatise on the
Lord's Prayer, refer to Cyprian’s expressly, | cannot say, nor need we
enquire. He was not bound to use the same materials as his predecessor,
And if Hilary's reference to the treatise is no argument for its genuine-
ness, surely the silence of Venantius is no argument against it But |
think Venantius is »o/ untinged with Cyprian. On such a subject co-
incidences are natural, but some resemblances here seem to be more than
coincidences. It must be remembered that Venantius! edjzc/ is different,
He writes very compressedly, but more theologically. For instance, he
says in speaking of the word Father, ‘we be not sons in the mode of the
‘Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, because He was born of His Own
‘Substance,,..yet through grace of the Only Begotten we have attained to
‘be made Adoptive.’ So again when Cyprian says the Jews are not Sons?,
Venantius says ‘the Arian, the Jew, the Photinian, the Manichee, the
Sabellian, and other plagues’; and when speaking of the Will of God,
goes at length into the question of the erroneousness of the ' Human
Will’ Compare however what both say as to the petition *Hallowed be
Thy name" being a prayer for Perseverance. Or compare the words of
de Dea. Orat. 13 on * Thy Kingdom come,’ Potest...dpse CAréshns este
regnum Dei quem venire cottidie cupimus, cujus adventus &c. quia in illo.
regnaturi sumus, with Ven, Fortunatus (col. 317 A, Migne, Za/r. Lat. v. 88)
Adveniat regraun. tuum, Aoc est Christus Dominus nobis adveniat quem
quotidie sanctorum chorus yeneranter erfvc/af, in cujus promissione se
confidunt justi regware, Or on ‘fiat Voluntas Tua,’ oe Dow. Orat. 14 Nam
Deo quis obsistit gwominus quod. velit faciat? sed quia mobir a diabolo
vbsistitur,..opus est Dei voluntate, id est ope ejus et protectione, quia
3 Aug. Scrwe 56, 57. 85 * Shepherd's Aourth Letter, p. 31.
3 De Dea, Orat. 13»
286 NOTE ON DE DOMINICA ORATIONE.
nemo suis viribus fortis est sed Dei indulgentia et misericordia tutus est,
with Fortun, (col. 317 4 and col. 318) Non id fit quia aliquis potuit resistere
ejus voluntati a non faceret aliquando guod voluit omnipotens.. sed ut in
nobis impleatur ejus voluntas ut operetur, guemian, adversario resistente,
nos voluntatem ejus implere non possumus nisi patrocinio ejus muniamur.
Or again, observe how in commenting on cz/uw et ferra we have, be-
sides the usual interpretation, the further one that the flesh may do the
works of the Spirit, and the expression ‘nos videmur facti esse ez/zster
per baptismum'— purely Cyprianic and introduced with a softening
phrase. In these passages the order of the thoughts is Cyprían's, the
peculiarities are Cyprian's, and the Tertullianesque handling of the third
petition is recast after Cyprian. There can be little doubt that Fortunatus.
was in some shape acquainted with Cyprian, though his aim and his touch
are different.
I may observe further that Ambrose! in his commentary on S. Luke
passes in silence the first four verses of chapter xi omitting the Lord's
Prayer altogether, This would seem to be inexplicable except for the
existence of some standard treatise, Whether there was such a treatise
appears from Hilary’s Commentary on Matt. v. 1, * De orationis sacra-
‘mento necessitate nos commentandi Cyprianus vir sancte memoria
M liberarit,!
It is easy with a careless sponge to stain a Numidian Marble, It may
take a month's work to extract that stain, And when it is done a fanciful
retina may see the blur still, In the history of scholars!
(more honest and nothing) more wanton, than the sharp guesses and
insinuations which, without real devotedness in research, without delicacy
of perception, only with an imitative ring of criticism, have been syringed
over some of the noblest essays of a great author,
1 Ambros. £xporit. Evang. tie. Lue, lib. vii. 87.
COMPARISON ELUCIDATING THE DATES. 287
Comparison elucidating the dates.
[The sateride, abet, ὅτε, coll aitemtion ἂν the my detached similaritio of phrase
‘Tertullianus, dr Orazione, Cyprianus, de Dominica. Chromatius, Tractat,
ea Oratio, ec. 24—17- xiv. a-
1] Secundum hane for. — £] Addimus quoque et — 1} Dehine sit: Fiat vo-
mam subjungimvs: Fiat vo dicimus: Fiat voluntas tua ia Dunbas tua sicot in cxelo et in
lentas tua in clic et in exloet in terra non ut Deus terra. par quoque et hic in-
terra, non quod aliquis obsis- facia! quod vult, sed ut mow telligentize ratio ext. non
tat, quominus voluntas Dei facere possimus quod Deus enim quisquam est qui obsla-
fiat, et ei saccessum voluntatis vult. nam Deo quis obwistit tere et contradicere Deo possit,
swe oremus, sed in omnibus quominus quod velit faciat? ne quod welit faciat; cum vo-
petimus fieci yoluntatem ejus; sed quis nobis a diabolo ob- luntate ejus et in exlo et in
sistitar quominus per omnia Lerracuncta consistent; sed, ut
noster animuradqueactes Deo im nobis volanta& jas fat,
obsequatur, oramus «t petimus. oramas,
ut fiat in nobis voluntas Dei:
qui ut fiat in pobis® "opus ext
Dei voluntate,' id est ope ejus.
eet protectione, quia nemo suis
viribus fortis ext sed Del indul-
aC. p] Ἐκ interprets Creme y Not in
tione enim figurata camis et
spiritus nost sumus clum et quem portabat ostendens ait:
terra. quanquam, etsi simplici- pater, ei fieri potest, transeat.
‘tor intellegendum est, idem a me calix iste, et exemplum.
amen est sensus petitionis, ut discipalis suis distribuens, ut
in nobis Bat voluntax Dei in nom voluntatem suam sed Dei
terris ut possit scilicet fieri etin. faciant, addidit dicens : verum-
cli. quid autem Deus vult tamen non quod ego volo sed
quara incedere nos secundum quod tu vis. et alio loco dieit:
suam disciplinam **? petimus non dexceadi de elo αἱ faciara
ergo sobstantiam et facoltatem. voluntatem meam sed volunia-
voluntatic mue subministret tem ejus qui misit me...
nobis, utHF salvi simus et in
calis et in terris, quia summa
'est voluntatis ejas salu eorum.
quos adoptavit
3] Estet ilia Dei volun- 51 Voluntas autem Dei 1.) Voluntas autem Dei
tas quam Dominus adminis est quam Christus et fecit et est, at toto corde εἰ credentes.
travit pnelicando, operando, docuit. humilitasin conversa here que fer precipit im-
sustinendo. Si enim ipse tone, stabilitas im fide, in pleamus, de qua woluntate
pronuntiavilf mon saam, sed factis justitia, in operibus mi- Dei Apostolus tevatur dicens:
putris facere se voluntatem, wericordia, in moribus disciplis Voduntas Det eat samo catio
ting dubio, qui faciebat, es na**,injuriamfacerenonnome wwuwa mí abitinestis tr a
t factam pome tolerare...
288 «COMPARISON. ELUCIDATING THE DATES.
mune nos velu ad exem.
plaria provocamur, ut et pre
dicemus et operemur et sus-
‘tincamus ad mortem usque.
quot implore possimas® opus
‘est Dei voluntate,
4j Ttem dicentes, fiat vo-
lentas tua, vel eo nobis bene
optamus, quod nibil mali sit
in Dei voluntate, etiam αἱ quid
pro meritis cujusque secus in-
rogatur. jam hoc dicto ad
3ufferentiam nosmetipsos prae-
monemus.
g-C.2] Dominus quo-
que cum sub instantiam pas
sionis infirmitatem carnis. de-
monstrare jam in sua came
voluisset : Pater, inquit, trans-
fer poculum istud, et recorda
‘tus, nisi quod mea non, sed tua.
fist voluntas. ipse erat volun-
‘tas et potestas parris, et tamen.
ad demonstrationem sufferen-
tie debitae voluntati se patris
1radidit.
(Reifferseheid.)
Cyprianus, de Des. Orat.,
ee 4t
voluntatem Dei in elo et in
erra... mam cum corpus e teria.
et spiritum possideamus e
cmloh ipsi *term et celum
sumus, ct in utroque, id est et lis ita quoque a nobi religioms |
corpore et spiritu, ut Dei vo- ac fideli devotione "semper |
Jantss fat oramus. est enim servetur in terra. quze volun
inter camer et spiritum con- tas ut in nobis rite possit ime
Juctatio,..et idcirco cottidianis pleri, sine Intermissione! divi--
immocontimiisorationibushoc ue dignationis ausilium pos
Á tulandor est.
g-T. 5] VelcerteFiatvoluntas.
intellegi...üt quoniam mandat taa sicut in cxlo ct in terra;
εἰ monet Dominus etiam ini- ur sent in cielo, id est in sane- |
amicos diligere et pro his quo- tis et cxelestibus hominibus,
que qui nos persecuntur orare. Dei voluntas impletur; ita
(cf. Tert. 3.) petamus et pro quoque in terra, id est in his
illis quiadhueterrasuntetaee- qui necdom crediderunt, per
dum calestes esse coeperunt credulitatem fidei et veritatis
ut et circa illos voluntas Dei cognitionem, ut Del fiat volun-
fiat... precem pro omnium tas oramus.
salute faciamus ut quomodo in
celo, ld est in nobis, per fidem
nostram voluntas Dei facia est
ut essemus c ciclo, ita et in
terra, hoc est in illis credenti-
bus, fiat voluntas Dei, ut qui
adbuc sunt prima nativitite
terreni incipiant esse czlestes
ex aqua et spiritu nat
(Hartel?)
17b Three lines omitted adrgue sensu, given in first Basle Edition 1328, in Braida,
apparently by a printer's slip at frst im — Utini, 1316, qv. and Migne.
Grynmus, Afonum, P. Orthodoxayrapha, v. ? Hartel's text, except in his infelicitous.
πὸ p. 134, 1369 La Bigne, Max. ZB. Vet. — conjecture erwderr molentibus for eredemtibus,
Fair. v. V. p. 987, Lugd. 1677; and Galland, see p. 571, τι, s«
B. V. P. vol. viri, p. 348, Venet, 17723 but.
RITUAL.—THE MIXED CUF.
"Va
Ritual.
τ. The Mixed Cup.
The last question’ which comes within the present cycle
of Cyprian’s activity was that of Ritual.
He has worked out the application of the new Christian
principles to the treatment of Suffering; to the purification
of the passions of Resentment and Sorrow; and‘ to intelligent
Communion with the Father. Time brought also round some
necessities for clearness in the Ritual in which the new
principles had tacitly embodied themselves A little later,
and it assumed such proportions as to dwarf for a time
the rest, and to leave the one blot on Cyprian's glory.
A material change had been introduced some time before
? Probably not ‘last’ chronologi-
cally, though Rettberg (p. 145, n. 1)
wishes to transfer Zp. 63 10 a date as
late ὡς the last persecution, since the
‘expression ‘cum mediocritatem nostram.
aemfer humili «t verecunda moderatione
deneanns’ Bp, 63. 1 postulates time for
tbeexhibition ofsuch qualities. Ritseht,
DP-241, 243, thinks the elair to modesty
and hamility more characteristic of the
beginnings of an episcopate. There
is nothing im this And in an ad-
mittedly late letter, £j. 66, 3. Cyprian
makes the same claim, "humilitatem
meam et fratres omnes ct gentiles quo-
que norunt et diligunt; which abo
the coofessors in almost the last letter
of all declare to be tme; ‘omnibus
hemiribus...in obsequio humilior... £5.
γ7- τ, Ritschl's theories drive him to
ottenere
(here including of course the Minlstmy,)
im conteudistinetion to the wine, as
representing the Divinity of the Lord,
‘The truth is that the letter bears no
note of date except that the semper...
tencamus implios some time, (as Rett-
ben) and that ch. 17 ‘ad collegas
nostros litteras dirigamus ut ubique lex
evangelica..servetur et ab «o quod
Christus et docuit et fecit non receda+
tur" implies a well-established position.
seems to be in a simmer-
ing state. The doctrine of the sacra
son'« opinion of the place of the Epistle
is not ill-founded.
19
290 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
by ἃ number of bishops, and among them perhaps a bishop.
of Carthage’, into the Eucharistic offering—the adoption of
water instead of wine. There is in this no trace" of religious
antipathy to wine, such as had been taught ninety years
before by Tatian, Not to say that there is no other indi-
cation of such teaching hitherto in Africa, the present was,
we clearly learn, the mere social timidity of a simple people",
Christian wives of heathen husbands, many dependents, and
others incurred unworthy suspicions from having the scent
of wine about them at an early hour‘ A compassionate
evasion had suffered them to communicate in water.
When scarcity of wine was found to have occasioned the
same irregularity at Regensburg, Saint Wolfgang wept so
profusely that his recovery was despaired of. The state-
ment that the Norwegians in the fifteenth century received
permission from Innocent the Eighth to celebrate in water,
? £p.63.1'...quidam.,.nonhocfaclunt. Gnostic Heresies, pp. 136, 7. Tille-
14 in preteritum, ante nor..." tz ‘siquis
deantecessoribusnostris...nonhocobser-
vavitet tenuit," This word (guidare) must
bethe ground of Pearson's statement that
the custom originated with*somebishop
οἵ Carthage,” Ann, Cypr. «D. 253, lli.
But if we consider the very official form
vof the letter, and its address to the senior
bishop of the province, the inference
Js not, I think, so cerisin. The mood
indicates some particular person.
? As supposed by F. Miinter, Zrimord-
Eccles, Africana, p, 1273 compare M.
Leydecker de Stat Kerles, v. de cultu.
Minter quotes, as if it Illustrated the
point, the "appendix! c. 52 ef Tertul-
Man's Praseriptio icorwm—which
appendix is a separate work, not Afri-
can. The Hydro-parastatc, Aquarii, or
‘+ Water-offerers" were in the 4th century
a branch of Tatianiets, or Eteratites ; an
Apocrypha-collecting, ascetic, Judaic,
Docetic School; see H. L. Mansel,
mont, v. I. p. 410. Not one of those
unmistakesble marks occurs in Cype
rian's account,
* 2p 63. x7, 18 simplicitati, simpli-
citer. n
* Suspicions not unjustified, if there
were many of those who (as Novatian
says) held it un-Christian to drink after
ing, ' Videas ergo tales move gemere.
adhac jejunos et jam ebrios, and pore
sibly at the Eucharist, as he speaks
of their ‘osculum.” This curious pus-
sage leaves it uncertain whether (1) they
drank overmuch wine at fasting com-
munions,or took stimulants before them,
or (2) whether Novatian himself io-
clined to the use of water in commu
nion, or (3) whether this was simply a
foolish defence of actual vice. Nova
tan, de Cibís iud. c. vie
3 Ada S. Wolfsugi Ratizpononzie
© 34) sp. Edm, Martine, de dmi.
Beeler, Rit. 1, ill, Art. vii. 85.
VI. v. 291
on account of the liability of their wine to sourness, is not
only denied but quite improbable.
Cyprian felt impelled to issue an official letter to Ceecilius.
of Biltha, not as an offender, but as senior bishop of the
Proconsular Province. (τες τὰ was one of the most regular
attendants in Cyprian's Councils, He had formerly been
employed in the suppression of grosser irregularities*;
and his speech, crossed perhaps with aged virulence, is the
first of the unhappy verdicts of the great Council on Baptism,
In the letter now addressed to him by Cyprian the wild-
mess, it must be admitted, of the Biblical interpretations and
the looseness of the logic, is equalled only by the quiet
insinuating beauty of its style*, the soundness of its con-
clusions and its value in evidence*. The substance however
is to this effect :—
That Wine in the Chalice is essential to the evangelical
tradition ; to the symbolic sense of the Last Supper; to the
fulfilment of antient types; and to the faithful representation
of the Lord’s own act. It is further apparent that Cyprian
and his contemporaries would have regarded the admixture
of water as being not indeed equally essential with the
presence of Wine, yet in its place essential for the fulfilment
of those four necessary conditions. ‘Drink ye the Wine which
1 have mingled for you’ he quotes from the Book of Proverbs*,
and then proceeds ‘Wisdom declares her Wine to be mingled;
RITUAL—THE MIXED CUP.
1 Baluze (p. 477) appears to ae-
‘expt ít on authority of Raphael Vola-
terranus, |. 7, p» 149, though even Bp.
Jewel states it hesiratingly on the same.
Contror. w. Harding, vol. 1. pp. 137, 223
Park, Soc. See Baronius, Anmal. ecl.
A.D. 1499, C. Xil,
fpa
3 Aug. de Doctrina Christisna, B. 1v.
c. xsi quotes it as a model of the
“eabeiissum dicendi genu."
* Ef. 63. Pearson's remos for
assigning ii to A.D, 253 are that some
expresions indicate a time of perse-
cution, and that Cyprian had been long
in office. Dom Maran ¥t. Cyr. xxxili.)
rightly thinks them not cogent. But
Teannot agree with him that it ix to be
placed after the controversy on Baptism
‘had broken out, Cyprian's whole sont
‘was then so charged with that eabjeet
‘that be could not have gone so near
without allusion to it far plainer chan
‘Maran estricates.
5 Ῥίον, ix. $0
292 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
* foreannounces, that is, with prophetic voice the Lord's Cup
‘mingled of Water and Wine, that it may appear that in
‘the Lord's Passion that which had been foretold was done*.’
Again ‘the Lord taught us by the pattern of His instrue-
‘tions that the chalice was mingled by conjunction of Wine
“and Water; and again ‘we find that what He ordered is
“not observed by us, unless we too do the same things which
*the Lord did, and similarly mingling the cup, depart not
‘from His Divine instructions */—Still such passages cannot
fairly be cited as exhibiting a direct decision of Cyprian's
that Water absolutely smi? be used as well as Wine, because
the immixture of Water was not the exact question before
him; and incidental judgments ought not to be alleged in
controversy as if they were direct. This is clear from another
clause of the last cited section. ‘In respect of which’ (the
incidents of S. Matt. xxvi. 28, 29) we find it was a ‘mixed
‘chalice which the Lord offered, and that it was the wine
‘which He called blood, Hence it appears that Christ's blood
‘is not offered if there be no wine in the chalice’
lt is true that he plainly says ‘wine alone cannot be
offered, and again ‘the cup of the Lord ἐς not water alone
nor wine alone, but he gives his reason for this assertion,
so that the assertion will not be valued (except as distinct
evidence of practice) by those to whom the reason does not
commend itself, This reason is that the water signifies the
People (according to the interpretation of the Apocalyptic
Seer that the waters are peoples *) while the wine signifies the
blood of Christ Himself with Whom His People’ are blended
in inseparable union and conjunction.
AD. 1439+ Decret. ad Armenos (Labbe,
Mansi, vol. xvitt., Venet 1773, col.
143, vol. XXXL. 1798, col. 1056), but it
is combined by them with the reason
? Ep. 63. 13, This account ix a- attributed to Alexander Bp. of Rome
dopted by the Council of Tribur A.D, — A-D. 109 (Ef. s. 4, spurious of course,
Bos, can. xix. and that of Florence — Labbe, Mansi, vol 1, Florent. 1759.
VI. v.
RITUAL.—THE MIXED CUP.
293
The same union is expressed in the Bread itself to which
no consistency could be given but by the use of water, The
many grains represent the multitudinous partakers who only
receive their unity in the one Loaf, the Bread of Heaven '.
call. 638, 9), namely the miraculous out-
flow from the side of Christ, The
Council of Trent adopts the interpre-
tation of the water meaning the foe,
but judicioody drops the appeal to
‘Ssint Alexander. (Session 29, ch. 7.)
*In most liturgies, when the water is
mixed with the wine some reference is
made to the blood and water which
flowed from the Lord's side... The
sane reason is given generally by the
liturgies": Cheetham, who specifies Ko-
man, Mozarabic and Ambrosian as in-
stances, This statement may so easily
‘cause important mistakes that it is well
to observe that ten principal liturgies,
among them the Remax, which direct
‘the mixture, have no allusion to this text.
The Syriac Liturgy of S. James, the
antient one of Lyons, the Carthusian
(pechaps as a survival of antient
Lyons) may be added to the other
two which have it. The Liturgy of
Constantinople pointedly avoids it, for
jf recites the text (Jo. xix. 34, 84)
where the Priest. in the little play
which goes on at the Prothesis, stabs
the Host *with the Lance's the mix-
ture of the chalice follows after this.
‘The Axthlopic pointedly avoids it; its
Miustration is Cana, and though ‘the
Blood shed on Golgotha’ is named the
‘Water is not. The Gregorian and Gela-
sian and the Nestorian (Adus and
Mari) do mot actually name Water,
though the mixture was made, nor do
five minor ones given ἴα Kenaudors
second volume, pp. 126—163; two
others do, pp. 179, 177; but in none
οἵ them, I think, is there any allusion to
the Effusion.
The parullel must surely have pre-
seated ibelf to Cyprian’s ‘memeriova
mens" and so can scarcely have ap
proved itself to him as being true sym-
boim. He does not however, among
the innumerable passages which he
thrice applies it to the distinet bu;
of Water and Blood, de Bape. 9, 16, de
Pri, 32.
The prayer at the mingling in the
Roman Missal carries the mymboliem to
A higher region—from the congrega-
tion to humanity itself, bat does this
by dressing up the beautiful Mattiue
end Vespers collect of the Nativity in the
Gelasian Sacramentary. Muratori (af.
vit.) t. eol. 497 ' Deus qui bumana gub-
stantix dignitatem et mirabiliter condi-
disti et mirabilius reformasti ; da quiesa>
mus wfejuc efücismur iu divina consortes.
qui nostre humanitatis fieri dignatus est.
into “per hujus aguos et vinl mysterium
jus divinitatis esse."
Whichever symbolism be accepted
the act itself of míngiim seems not to be
suitable to any time after the presenta
tion ix hegun by placing the elements
on the πρόϑεσιε of credence, or at any
rate after their removal from it for the
oblation.
1 p.63.13' ut quemadenodum grana.
multa in unum collects et conmolita ct
294 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
Nevertheless, though Cyprian has not given even in these
words a declaration on the subject, yet since he lays down‘ that
'the Lord's sacrifice is not celebrated with legitimate conse-
*eration except our oblation and sacrifice correspond with His
* Passion; and as ' legitimate consecration' is assumed to consist.
indoing what our Lord did, preserving the tradition, representing
the Passion, or following its points in symbol, we are compelled
to conclude that, although he allowed that the blood of Christ
was received through communion in the wine, yet he would
not have held that the consecration of wine without water was
‘legitimate,’ but would have included that practice, however
long-standing in any church, under the category of Human
Tradition followed in place of Divine Example”.
Other corollaries of a not unimportant character are
immediately inferrible from this Letter-Treatise. The Com-
munion of the Congregation is essential. ‘The absence of the
Congregation prevents the Commemorative Mixed Chalice
which may be offered in the Family after the Evening Meal
from being anything of a true Dominicum.
Again, the Morning Hour is the only hour at which the
Resurrection! (which is the power of the Eucharist) can
duly be celebrated; Christ
moster mumerus et adanatus.' This
image, which was as his lovers know so.
favourite and constant an image with
Dean Stanley, is the most antient
holism we have. See the beautiful
Bucharistic prayer in the Touching of
the ail, Aparttes, c. 9, Ὥσπερ ἣν τοῦτο
[278] κλάσμα διεσαυρανσμένον ἔνάνω τῶν
ὁρέων καὶ συναχϑὲν ἐγένετο ἕν, οὕτω σιν-
Pro σοὺ ἡ ἐκελησία ἀπὸ τῶν περάτων
τῆν γῆν εἰν τὴν σὴν βασιλείαν. CH.
Consti. Apost. vil. c. 26 which omits
ἐπάνω τῶν ὀρέων and has elt ἄρτου for ἕν.
3 Ep. 63. 10.
* Ep. 63 14 Daluze, p. 477, cites
am instructive rubric from an antient
Himself had offered in the
use of S. Martin's at Tours “If by
mistake the priest bas consecrated un-
mized wine, or water without wine,
the wine is held to be sacrament, bat
not the water,” It seems natural that
the Monophysite church of Armenia
(Marténe) should consecrate wine only,
but their anticatly alleged reason waa a
passage of Chrysostom Zone. 82 (83) in
Mt. 26, c.2. For this usage they were
reproved (with n proper explanation of
their Chrysostom) in the sand canon of
the Quini-Sextine Council 4-D. 692,
but keep it still
? Lip. 63. τό.
VI. v. RITUAL.—THE AGE OF BAPTISM. 295
Evening solely in order to mark the close of the old order
and to merge the Passover Ritual into ours,
Thus in the Celebration of the Eucharist no less than
in the Theory of Orders points arise in which no modem
community can be strictly said to be at one with the
Cyprianic Church.
2. The Age of Baptism.
The Ritual of another Sacrament was also now coming 4.0. 253.
into the field, though not yet in all its import. In September 4o.
A. 253 or late in the summer of that year* it was considered £e Imp.
safe to hold the Bishops meeting omitted at Easter. The no
tumult of military faction and perhaps the succession of Gallus
Valerian, whose household is described as a ‘Church of God’) vedamni-
so leavened was it with Christianity, gave this breathing. Volusanoe
space. Sixty-six bishops met in Carthage.
A record of two of their deliberations is preserved in Ed
their letter to Fidus a Bishop. He had found it in his heart ™*
to petition that an excommunication prematurely removed
from a repentant presbyter might be renewcd* He also
found it in his heart to request that a canon might be passed
prohibiting the baptism of infants under eight days old. The
mind of the Bishops, Cyprian replies, was * far other’ than his ;
‘not a man agreed with him’; they ‘judged that God's pity
and grace could be denied to no child of man.’ Fidus shrank
from bestowing the Kiss of Peace on so young a babe, as if it
were yet unclean. Cyprian replies that the fresh handiwork
of God claims only deeper reverence: in it we discern, we
kiss His own creative hands. It is only to our sight that
birth begins existence. To God the soul has lived before.
Judaic forms of uncleanness were but types, and are for ever
‘The date of A. δε is discussed —* Dion, AL ap. Kus. vii. το.
Pe 334. ? Sup. p. agr
296 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY.
atanend, Perhaps this Eighth Day itself had been assigned
to circumcision in order to give to a carnal rite some touch of
Spiritual association with the Resurrection Day, the First of
the New Week. The first weeping of the ' helpless new-born,
babe’ sounded to the heathen like a foreboding of the misery
of living, to the Christian ear it was a prayer and an appeal.
These beautiful thoughts helped the straightforward
reasoning to shatter in Christian spirits the petty pleas of
Fidus, with whatever of Judaizing lay behind them.
With this letter in his hand‘, at Carthage upon S.
Gaudentius' day, a hundred and sixty years later, in the
Basilica where lay Perpetua and Felicitas’, Augustine defen-
ded against Pelagius the principles of Infant Baptism.
And we may remember in a yet earlier essay how there
can be nothing broader and freer than Cyprian's recognition
that Christian Baptism is truly a re-assertion of our human
Childhood and Sonship to God. "ΑΛ who by the hallowing
“force of baptism come to the gift and patrimony of God,
“there, by the healthful laver’s grace, put off the ‘old man,’
“are remade by the Holy Spirit, and in a second nativity are
“cleansed from the old infectious plague spots*.”
Δ Aug. de Gestls iai xi. 8 a5
See also contra ti. Epistolas Pelagg. lib.
ἀν. 6. vili. dag.
* Basilica Majorum ? Majorini ? Ma-
jor. "The Mss, of Victor Vitensis Fé,
Persecut. i, 3 have Majorum, except W
(Vindabon. sec. xi.) and L (Berolin, sec.
xii), but Petschenig has thought fit to
prefer in this place the reading of these
two, Majorem. The titles of Aug.
Sermm. 34 Ad Majores ai 165 atd 294.
support Majorwm, but 258 has Majorem.
Tt is impossible not to remember the
recently explored great Basilica of Care
thage close outside the walls, with ite
nine aisles, its large bapti-tery and vast
semicircular narthex and t:ilobate ' mar-
tyrium.”
* De Habitu Virgr, 13 ‘Omnes qui-
dem qui ad divinum munus et farmi.
meminm baptismi sanctificatione per-
veniunt Aominem illic veterem gratia
lavaeri salutaris zxpomusr et innovati
Spiritu Sancto a zerdibur contagionis
antique iterata nativitate purgantur."
Compare also De Habite Virg. 2° scien-
ἴδε quod templa Dei sint membra nostra
ab omni ὕκος contagiowis antique lae
vacri vitalis sanctificatione purgata."
Y must with most editions and seven of
Balure's codices, in spite of 8, W, D.
and Hartel, maintain paedrimonium,
which Goldhorn restores and Baluse
(ρ. 538) allows, *Divinum munus et pa-
trium is not Cyprlanlc order or sense.
RITUAL—=THE AGE OF BAPTISM. 207
Objection to Council HI en account of ite Antijlagianitm.
It bas been ironically observed that the question of Fidus ‘gives
‘Cyprian the opportunity of making a thoroughly antipelagian dis-
‘course'—a wild statement and misleading to those incapable of
following it up. The letter has been treated as spurious on the
alleged grounds, first that it resembles the later Canon CX of the
African Code, and secondly that its language shews it to be later than
the Pelagian controversy!
Now, that CXth canon is against those who object to Infant
Baptism, or hold it to be a sort of dramatic fiction, on the ground.
that there is no original sin*.
But Fidus has not a word either for or against the doctrine of
Original Sin. Heapproved of Infant Baptism; only, for certain small
reasons, not till the infant was eight days old. And the answer
observes that besides the irrelevance and unkindness of his ideas, the
innocent child was at least as worthy of acceptance as a sin-laden
màn; à not very antipelagian doctrine,
Then, as to the language; it is impossible that it can have been
penned after the Pelagian controversy. There is not one technical
term in it So far as verbal likeness goes the Cyprianic fathers
might have almost seemed rather against the Augustinian thought.
This defines original sin to be ‘de/é another's and our own.’ They
aay “The sins remitted to the infant are the sins of others, of his
own? Thus nothing can be more different than the purview of the
canon and the epistle except the language itself; and while no forger
after the controversy could have helped using recognised terms, we
have in the language of Cyprian just the clear but untechnical style
which marks the catholic doctrine in an age prior to a controversy*,
but which cannot perhaps for ages afterward be recurred to as
adequate and used accordingly.
* Shopherd, pp. 3t, $% and p. ur,
letter 2.
ἢ σρνγονικὴ ἁμαρτία --ὅπερ Paver
ἐκ rin ἀρχαιογονίαν, Justel. Cod. Cann,
Ficclns. Afric. 110,
3 No "Originale Peseatum,” *Peeca-
tum originis’ or ‘Contagium Peceati.”
Conlagiwm mortis autinue is the trae
but waleehmical consequence of our first
birth.
+ Precisely the same treatment of the
same doctrines with the same freedom
from technicality exists in the de Op. e£
Kleem, itd de Merkel 3p. Avg. Contre
τὰ Ep Plage. V. tv, c, viii. as, and
see the list of ancient authors to the same.
effect quoted by Routh, A. 5. vol. iti.
Pp. 148, 9.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ROMAN CHAIR.
L
The End of CORNELIUS.
WE have anticipated by three months at Carthage a great
change which had occurred at Rome. Cornelius had been
suddenly’ banished to Centumcelle—that Cività Vecchia
which has been so fateful for his line. The first intention had
been to isolate him. But his apprehension was the signal for
ἃ crowd of the Lapsed* to revoke and expiate their Denial,
They thus justified Cyprian’s policy of penance with hope of
restitution’, They were hurried away with him as were also
the Confessors who had lately escaped to him from the
influence of Novatian. Their numbers were such as to im-
press at least themselves, and perhaps the government, with
the idea that, if they had been so minded, they might
have made something at least of a stand, ‘It was a con-
fessorship of the whole church of Rome*' Such an exile
then was a happy reunion of extreme factions, and breathing
1 Repentina persecutio... secularis po-
testas subito proruperit, £p. 61. 3. Cf.
Ep. Go. 2 'quasi mints parstoz et minus.
cautos.”
* Quot illic Lapsi gloriosa confessione.
fuit, nd ecclesiam sunt reveni. Past
hoc Centumcellis exful. Ibi cum
VIL 1. THE END OF CORNELIUS. 299
this consolation Cornelius died ‘with glory’ in June AD.
253.
The Antipope was too inconspicuous to the Magistracy
to be in danger. In Cyprian’s eyes his immunity otherwise
unexplained ought to have been to him evidence of his
Divine rejection. Quid ad hac Novatianus? The outburst
was the open seal of heaven's favour and hell's hostility to the
truc priest and people, and was clearly designed for this very
end*.
Cornelius has been ranked as a martyr by the church of
Rome since the middle of the fourth century, and his festival
kept with Cyprian's on the 14th of September. The state-
ment is first found in Jerome* that *they suffered on the
same day though not in the same year,’
In the contemporary sense of the word a Martyr he was,
as dying in exile‘. Cyprian who in writing to him speaks of
his ‘glorious witness, afterward speaks of him and Lucius
(who was not a martyr either in our sense of the word) as
+ ‘That the month of his decease must.
have been ‘Funeis shewn above (chap.
11. pe 147 note). Pearson (who is how-
ever misled by the traditional Sestomber
of his legendary martyrdom) argues
justly that the eventa and changes which
occurred after May 15, 252, and before
his death could not have been erowded
into the June of sgs—viz. the ordi-
mation of Fortunatus his voyage, re«
jection and fresh attempt, with all the
letters which pasted between Cyprian.
and Cornelius, the latter in security at
‘Rome, the former in daily expectation
of death. Again Dionysius of Alex-
andrin mentions in a letter to Cornelius.
the death of Fabius of Antioch, and
the consecration of his successor Deme-
trian, (Eus. 4, Δ. vi. 46.) According
to the Cérenicle of Eusebius this was
in the consulship of Valerian and
Gallienus L, or in the year 2272 after
Abraham, AD, 253—4 (Lipsius, a. cit.
P. 210), "This is a strictly independent
testimony in support of the most accu-
rate catalogues which, giving to his
sent» years 3 months and 10 days,
bring the year of his death to 255 A.D,
Jerome makes the satement.
"Rexit ecclesiam ub Gafle Volusiane
duohus amis? De Viris Jl. 66.
Pearson (Annol, Cyje, 359, xii)
accuses the Roman Breviary of placing
his death under Decins. At present
however it reads Gallo αἱ Folusiane
sonaufifus which though Incorrect
is Pearson's own. He relied on the
faulty (Lipsins, eit. p. 209) con-
sular list of the Liberian Catalogue,
3 Kp. bo. 3. Bf. δι. ἃ "tots condis.
luce perspicimus, &c.*
300 THE ROMAN CHAIR.
‘planted together in glorious martyrdom,’ and again styles
him a Blessed Martyr’,
However, these terms are familiar enough to us as used of
living prisoners or exiles, and by no early authority is he said
to have been put to death. His name is not on the Liberian
martyr-roll, nor yet in the Deposition of Bishops, All
accords with the more modest antient record ‘There with
glory he took slecp*’ His remains were carried to Rome,
and were laid near to the older bishops but not among them".
He rested amid the ashes—so it must seem—of his patrician
house* and with his name cut in Latin, and not like his
predecessors in Greek",
Salonina, the wife of Gallienus, whom his father Valerian
immediately associated with himself, in this* October was
both a Cornelia and a Christian’. We might without over-
years later down to Eutychian are
Greek like their litargy.
© Comp. Imerr. Latt. WIth. i, 148%.
7 Of the many coins of Comelia
Salonina some remarkable types bave.
‘on the obverse her throned, sceptred
1 Epp, 60 irit. s 68.5561. 35 67. 6369-3:
? Momasen, op. eif p. 636+
3 The old frateller notices
this, Rossi, 2. δ. τ p. 180.
* See Northcote and Brownlow,
Roma Sotterranea 1. pp. 353—363.
? Sup p. 194. Rossi, Roma Sotter.
vanes, tom. 1. p. aga ff, tar. iva 3.
All before him and those for fifty
‘This Jn Pace is elsewhere absolutely
limited to Christian memorials. Other
‘coins of hers bear common types. But
itis observable that though her husband
isecratio p
rot family except of Valerian,
there is no pagan apotheosis of Salo-
uina, De Witte, who frst commented
figure, holding in her right hand an olive
branch, and with the legend AVGVUTA
IN PACK.
on this type a !
than Salonina’sdeath, doubted thisafter
yreas's ‘danger in A.D.
Milan. C, W. King
VILI THE END OF CORNELIUS, 301
boldness perhaps conjecture that such a princess was not
unconcerned in the locality or the adornment of his repose.
This chamber is said im a later story to have been first
prepared for him in a crypt on her own estate, on the Appian
Way, hard by the cemetery of Callistus, by the lady Lucina
called afterwards the Blessed, who was also incorrectly said
to have aided Cornelius himself in laying the body of S. Peter
in the Vatican and of 8, Paul on the Ostian Way. But it was
delicately done, whoever brought to his side in death the
Presbyter and Confessor Maximus whom Cornelius had
brought back to the Catholic Church in life! The sepulchre
of Cornelius ‘is with us to this day,’ still rich in architectural
appointments and shewing trace of some grand sarcophagus
to which his bones had bcen transferred from a simpler but
not unnotable grave.
We may add that in the fourth century Damasus in his
last illness opened the old chapel more to the light and began
ἃ staircase for pilgrims’. Injured by Lombard invaders it
does not see why she should be suppose
to have been then alive (Early Chrast-
dan Numismatics, p. 47) but I think he
eannot bare noticed that incident ; for
Zonaras would be worse than be is if he
id not mean to connect it with that
siege. Mut om the other hand it seernx
to me not impossible that Pipara, his
German princess, ‘quam penditedilexit,’
and in honour of whom he and his court
wore ἐμοῖς hair yellow (Treb. Pollio, Gal»
dimi dus c. 21), may bave been the
Βασίλισσα of this camp-story. At any
rate, whether in life or death, Salonina's
ἦν α Christian legend, without pressing
the Ms. on some of the exengues to
mesn Manors Sancta. Other indir
cations of a Christian influence on this
Incomprehensible emperor occur in the
text.
Gallienus once sent a mass of valu-
ables to propitiste Claudius, among
‘them ‘trientes Salomimiewer trecentos"
perhaps of his Empress, perhaps of his
son (Treb. Poll. Clad. 17).
Roni,
ec pet Bini Dees pest ta
pane ERE - popolisque
paratum.
Auxilium Sancti, et valeus αἱ fundere.
puo
Corde preces, Damasus melior conaur-
gere posset
Quem non lucis amor tenuit mage car
laboris.
‘This recovery, from several fragments
VILL. THE END OF CORNELIUS, 303
was restored by Leo III. in the ninth century, and then the
tall commanding figures of the brotherly Cornelius and
Cyprian were painted on its walls*.
It is impossible not to be led a little aside by what has
been of undying interest to so many generations. But to
return to the facts of Cornelius death and burial The
inferences from them are clear enough. Dying quietly at
Cività Vecchia his death-day had for a time no very marked
commemoration, When a festival was sought for him as a
Martyr he was conjoined with his friend and brother Cyprian
whose day had been long observed at Rome. For so, without
any mention of Cornelius, Cyprian's actual death-day appears
in the Kalendar of A.D. 354.
‘Fourteenth of September, commemoration of Cyprian,
Africa. It is kept at Rome in the cemetery of Calistus*’
and from Damasus familiar tags of
the original inscription placed over the
tomb at Damasus" restoration is one of
De Rossi's most ingenious and perfect
triumphs Αἱ, S. 1. p. 389—391.
¥ Rogi, &. S. tL. tav. vie
asp. 364 (XVI. Kis Ocros, Cre
PRIANI APRICR ROMA CELEBRATUR
an Catseri.!
‘With extraordinary violence Rossi
wishes to insert Cormeli im. Catisti bes
fore the name of Cyprian, and Momm-
sen (Abhand. d. &. 5. Ges. d. Wissens.
Tn p. 633, note r, über den Chrono-
graph vom Jah. 554) would take cole
bratwr to be x corruption of Cormdi.
‘To such lengths will determined erities
even now proceed. The unfortunate
‘suggestion is borrowed apparently from
Maratori, Lit. Rom. Vet.1, col. 39.8. &
ἴϑες Afpndix on S. Cyprisn's Day,
p.610)
The Filician Catalogue says Cornelius
was beheaded at the Temple of Mars,
and gives the story of Lucina, of which
the ntruth will appear in the history of
Xystus This catalogue is
obliged to omit the older words ‘Ibi
cum gloria dormicionem aecepit' Lip-
sius, ef cit. pp. 135, 375.
The Sitting of LUCIUS,
"The whole chronology with its perplexities is unravelled
by this disengagement of the decease of Cornelius from its
liturgical connection with the fourteenth of September, and
its certain replacement, in June A.D. 253. A few days may
perhaps be assumed to have elapsed before the twenty-fifth of
that same month, on or near to which his successor Lucius
came to the Chair for a brief eight months and ten days’,
He was immediately banished* though without depriva-
tion of property or rights*, and directly afterwards recalled or
allowed to return; with him came home apparently the great
mass of exiles, Whether this was some experiment in the
working of terror and leniency, or whether it was a result of
the divided sentiments of the imperial houscholds we cannot
tell. Valerian became severely anti-Christian, but we have
just seen that Salonina, the wife of his son Gallienus, who at
this juncture, succeeded with him to the honours of Consul,
Imperator, Cesar and Augustus, was probably a Christian
and of the same great house as the last Bishop; and Gallienus
in his rescript of toleration published when he began to reign
alone in A.D. 261‘, speaks of having already dong ago made
concessions to the Christians.
+ Cyprian’s solitary letter to Lucius — *N« ground for stating that he had been
(Ej. 61) indicating only one other and — i
this lately written and anticipating mar-
tyntom for him besides, w
the pontificate as probably 1
Lipsius has shewn independently that
laces of worship (ἀπὸ
»): they may ex-
VH. in THE SITTING OF LUCIUS. 305
Certainly the persecution was not supposed to be over
with Lucius’ recall. Cyprian had visions of coming evil and
tells him that he may and ought to expect to be ‘immolated
before the eyes of the brethren’ in Rome. The Church was
itself unaware of the reason of the change; and long after-
wards referred it simply to the ‘will of God'; just as Cyprian,
at the moment, referred it to the favour of God investing his
episcopate at once with Confessorship. He pictures his
retum as a scene of such joy that it was a forctaste of Christ's
near return’, and Lucius the likeness of His forerunner.
More than this is not to be known of his character.
Cyprian seems to write to him as to a manly kind of person,
but it would be pressing his phrases too far to be sure
that they describe the person rather than the protective office.
An early ritual tradition ascribes to him the ‘precept!
that the bishop of Rome should be accompanied in every
place by two presbyters and three deacons’; a tradition which
perhaps echoes some facts of his exile.
But what is most important is that, in his view as to the
right treatment of the Lapsed and their restoration after
penance to peace and communion, he was at one with his
predecessor Cornelius,—that is firmly against Novatian and
with Cyprian—and that he had issued documents upon that
subject *.
On the sth of the following March he was laid beside
Fabian in the cemetery of Callistus. The day is given us in M ΤᾺ
Forse
ροῦσϑαι ἤδη πρὸ πολλοῦ ὑπ' ἐμοῦ ext. Catal. Aui. Hie in exilio fuir roo].
. i x ous, Imp.
but 1 do mot s the point of that,
and would suggest that the clause
may mean ‘what you may perform
dm accordance with this leave, I have
conceded practically Jong since."
Ἢ Catal. Léger. Mic exul fuit εἰ postea.
muta dei incolumis nd ecclesiam reversus
n.
306
fm. the entombment-list not of martyrs but of bishops. His
Valeria» Original sepulchral slab with Greek characters, and no mention
up of martyrdom, adds simply the most interesting of the
Lures examples of the vulgar termination, common in Greek, Jewish,
or Gracizing-Latin Inscriptions during the third century, but
Pins Felix almost extinct before the end of the fourth*.
Avg.
THE ROMAN CHAIR.
The incidents of the last few pages, difficult, and almost
fretful, for criticism to elicit and to combine with so
much certainty, will not seem trivial to those who perceive
through them, how firm and subtle were the new threads
which were now being drawn through all society, securing
the allegiance of imperial antient houses, drawing to the
centre of influence men who had not even a family
4 qm Now. Mam. Luci IN. CALISTO,
Mommsen, of. cif. p. 631. τὰ Non.
MAR. CONS. 33. Catal. Liler. Lipsius,
op. ait. p. 267. The Liberian list is
mot only wrong in carrying this date
into the arid consulship of Valerian and
and of Gallienus (4.D. 255) under whom
it puts down also the death of Stephanus.
MENIE. Wu
as Cavitis, Clodis shews it not to have
over four years later, but irreconcilable
with ite own date of 3 years 8 m:
10 days which it counts from Gallas IT,
Volusion I. (4.0. 282).
? We have AITOPIC ap. 263,
stances we have are TAPACIC 4.0,
461, and OYPANIC | “vith or viithe
logue,
75, quotes CORNILIS.
VH. τη. STEPHANUS. 307
mame, knitting together classes that had been apart since
Roman law began;—how a new moral magistracy grappled
with the sins which underlay crimes ;—how possible it was to
fall out of such an association, and then—how men would
give all things—health, wealth, connection, honours—to be
restored to it.
TH.
STEPHANUS.
The Church not identified with or represented by Rome.
Cyprian's relations with Rome soon afterwards underwent
a great change. It takes effort to view with candid and clear
vision, so as to see them in their first meaning, such facts and
expressions as controversies have since coloured and shaded.
Yet the truth is that what was confused and beclouded while
nothing but amity existed was made distinct by variances.
The dignity of the Roman Sce was in Cyprian’s eyes that of
an inherited precedency and presidency, and not due merely
to the fact that, if Carthage was the second city of the world,
Rome was its mistress".
But that even its more moderate claims to spiritual
supremacy are a doctrine unknown to Cyprian is evidenced,
as we have seen, by the definite alterations which Roman
divines have introduced into his language and maintain
there'.
Exemplifications of his real theory are ‘writ large’ in his
corrections of the successor of Lucius. Long before the bitter-
ness of theological difference arose between them, in dealing
with moral cases of Lapse, we had to look onward, and we
saw how the church of Africa received appeals against two
* Milman and others assign rather too * See ἃ very profligate blazon of that
much weight to this, Cf. Ej $9. 14. theory as a historic fact in Freppel, pp.
See pp. 195, 196 above. 118—136 and 118—40.
uF
308 THE ROMAN CHAIR.
ecclesiastical judgments af the Roman Bishop and reversed
them‘. Presently we shall find him admonished of his duty
toward a Novatianist and desired to transmit an account of
his discharge of it to Carthage’, The Christian world con-
temned his arrogance, while it confirmed his practice in
Baptism, Modern Rome outdoes his pretensions and freely
uses the Rebaptism he rightly condemned.
It might at first sight seem as if only one common link
could hold together alliances so inconsistent with each other,
alliances with Lapsed, with Novatianists, who stood equally
aloof from Lapsed and from Heretics, and with the Heretics
themselves,—a consistent opposition to Cyprian. It might
seem as if nothing but uniform contravention of Cyprian's
policy in its three branches could evolve such variety. Ste-
phen might wish to abolish out of Rome the influence to
which his predecessor had yielded; Cyprian's Petrine unity,
he might say, was but theoretical, his practical Episcopal
unity threatened the Roman unity. But if he could force
Cyprian into opposition to his See and its Traditions, that
Petrine theory of his would serve to put Cyprian in the
wrong, and leave him on his own shewing no better than a
Novatianist*.
But mortal opponency surely never ran so wild a length.
At any rate, of this low subtlety there is no appearance on
the part of Stephen. Indeed at Rome, where Cornelius was
so much more of a presence than Cyprian, the effect to
the eye of the Church would be that of an onslaught upon
Cornelius and his councils rather than on Cyprian, Besides
it had virtually been Cornelius who modified Cyprian's puri-
tanism. When Stephen restored peccant bishops he was
following Callistus; when he condemned Rebaptism he was
appealing to tradition older than Callistus. In all the letters
ΑΙ Pp, 233 284 above. Zp. Gr. * Hippolytus, ado, omnes eren,
3 Ep. 68. dort el 7.
? So Ritschl.
Ρ
VII. m. STEPHANUS, 309
to and about him Cyprian never writes as if Stephen were
making capital out of his own Petrine unity; he repeats the
theory, He shews no consciousness that his view of episco-
pal unity is disputed or is likely to be disputed by Stephen.
He strongly states" his conviction of the truth and antiquity
of the African discipline, but acknowledges in Stephen as
in other bishops the right and the responsibility of differing.
Thus there is no trace of that diplomacy with which Stephen
is ingeniously credited by moderns: nor yet of the mere
obstinacy of which he is accused by his contemporary”.
The business of history is not to be reviving blots which
have faded from the world's mind, but to mark and trace all
life which was ever true and all truth which ever lives.
Our material is sufficient to indicate that from the first
Stephen had no leaning towards rules which his predecessors
and Cyprian had laid down for themselves. His temper
(which so often corresponds to, even if it does not interpret,
a policy) was that of a man averse to strictness, and severe
only with those who wished to see him so, His policy may
be characterized as roughly anti-Novatianist or anti-puritan,
and in Cyprian himself there was, as we have seen, an under-
tint of puritanism not invisible to Stephen, whose ruling that
ἃ lapsed or a perjured bishop might, without over severe
conditions, resume his see, or even a Novatianist retain his,
were strong anti-Novatianist examples of tolerance. But in
fact he may be rather said to have inaugurated, or at least
to have been an early type of the regular Roman policy of
comprehension on easy terms saving as to the one article
of submission: ready in Spain to restore semi-pagans to the
Episcopate ; ready in Gaul to uphold the harshest repeller of
penitents; ready anywhere to receive Marcionites without Bap-
tism to Communion, And although the issue of his long severe
Baptismal controversy with Cyprian has been determined by
the Church catholic in Stephen's sense ; although the practice
* BATE LL * Epp bae
310 THE ROMAN CHAIR.
he maintained has been accepted as true wisdom and true
charity; although Cyprian's theory has been rejected as
well-nigh unchristian, yet few moral triumphs have equalled
the ascendency of the vanquished Carthaginian, It arose
solely upon the nobility of tone, the magnanimous gentleness,
the postponement of self to the Church, in which he con-
ducted his unhappy cause. The never broken veneration
entertained for him is an answer to the calumny that theolo-
gians cannot forgive an opponent, or spare the memory of
the defeated, It was the victorious Stephen who did not
recover the shock of that conflict. While Cyprian and
Cornelius are companion saints in Kalendar and Collect’,
beside the altar of the Catacomb* and in the mosaic heaven
of the Basilica’, Stephen rested for centuries in the unpraised
silence into which Pontius* dismisses him, Not until in the
ninth century a catacomb yielded a marble chair with an
inscription over an unnamed martyr pope, did the church of
Rome assign saintship to Stephanus’ disengaged name How
he has lost both chair and legend again will be narrated
hereafter.
Jeremy Taylor sets an uncharitable seal to the popular
church view of his ‘uncharitableness, Stephen was accounted
a zealous and furious person’ Still we ne
that his portrait is made up of traits ctched in scraps by
the pen of an adversary, and that he was not solitary (as
Florentius evinces) in his aversion to the power which
Cyprian was now wielding’ Dionysius the Great makes
? Leonian Sacramentary, Muratori, ὁ See Rossi as I L2 313
Liturg. Rom, Vet. vor, col. 4045
Gelasinn Sscramentary,c. 668; Gelnsian
Kalendar, e. 49; Gregorian Socra-
mentary, t. 1. c. 119; Gothic Missal,
Lom. pe 629, an entirely different
‘office for Cornellus and Cyprian, but
still together On the variations of |
the day here and in other rituals, ee — yim,
Appendix, p. 610.
VH. πα. STEPHANUS. git
thankful mention of his liberality to the churches of Syria
and Arabia; and to Vincent of Lerins' there floated across
two centuries a tradition of modesty as well as zeal, of faith
as well as dignity*.
It was about the twelfth of May, A.D. 254*, when Stephen May 12,
succeeded to the Chair of Lucius. Cyprian’s first extant "5^
letter to him was not so much in a tone of equality as in the
spirit of direction, if not of dictation. He anticipates no
differences, but plainly expects to be on the same terms with
him as had existed with Cornelius, His language is rather
peremptory, but with a peremptoriness which feels it may
reckon on compliance,
In the next letter Cyprian has already given Stephen up.
He makes a faint apology for him on the ground of his
'unacquaintedness with the facts and trath’ of the case,
makes allowance for his 'inattention^' and proceeds to lay
down principles and give directions in absolute reversal of
Stephen's. »
Elsewhere* we have given the outline of the heathenish
Lapse of two Bishops in Spain and of the action taken about
them. We reserved till now a consideration of the principles
that reveal themsclves in that intercourse of churches or
dioceses, We must enter a little more into detail.
1. The Spanish Appeal.
It will be recollected that Stephen on the personal ap-
plication of Basilides gave judgment that such men as he
bishop, a true member of a true line,
* Lipsius, of. af. p, at.
© Rjtschl's view that f. 68 is earlier
than 67 is just. There is no mistaking
the change of tone towards Stephen
from am affectionate confidence to &
selt-restained coldness. Afterwards it
‘Miibatern.' This may only mean that — was cxasperatel,
they admitted him to be a genuine φΦΡ 43} abowe.
312 THE ROMAN CHAIR.
and Martial should on recantation be restored to their sees’,
"The church of Leon with Astorga thereupon appointed its
presbyter Felix, and the church of Merida its deacon* JElius,
to compose an instant appeal to the great church of Carthage;
Merida sent by the same bearer an epistle from Felix of
Saragossa. Whether this Felix was the bishop of that place,
or some representative layman, does not appear, but the his-
torians of Arragon have debated the question with interest*.
Sabinus, who had been unanimously elected to succeed Basi-
lides and confirmed by the neighbouring bishops, and Felix,
who had replaced Martial, carried the three Letters
The reply of Carthage to the churches is the composition.
of Cyprian. It closes with his own nominal salutation, It is
written in the name of seven and thirty prelates who as-
sembled in Carthage in the autumn of A.D. 254% It punc-
tiliously exempts Stephen from further blame than that of
negligence in accepting Basilides' mere assurance of repent-
ance, and ratifying his episcopal tenure, when even to absolve
him would have been a strong measure. It assumes that if he
had investigated he would have decided as they—Cyprian’s
Fourth Council—decided, namely Zu the two men had for
? It ix mot expressed that Martial ap-
proached Stephen, but fallacia (Ep. 6
5) is attributed to him, and these
spectable Spaniards are treated ας both
‘on one platform,
? The Spanish deacons bor
portant part in the ;
το pag, δὲ mp. p.t pe
sumptions are restrained A«D. ge at
Arles, Cann. 1$, 18.
The Abbé Duchesne, Faser Épim. —
de P Ane, Gawle, t. % pe 40, cites from propri
the Letter of Vienne and Lyons ap, n wee; the Churches of Leon
agg, Eus. ΑΓ. E. v.a "fe (sic) incre — and Astorga had received the decision
de Vienne, τὸν διάκονον dm) Bilerm' as — and appealed to Cyprian against it,
an early sample ^d'un diacre chargé du
VH. ur. - 313
ever surceased from the episcopate. To Stephen himself the
Council submits no representation of its opinion. They make
not the most distant allusion to any inherent prerogative of
his office as Bishop of Rome’, There is no request that he
would reconsider his judgment, or recognise theirs, They
simply reverse his verdict and regard their reversal as final.
Their long cpistle, estimating the many points at issue, treats
the decision of the Bishop of Rome as simply and gravely
mistaken, and therefore to be set aside. There are then
no less than four accounts upon which this Synodical Epistle
of AD. 254 on the affair of Basilides and Martial is im-
portant as a witness to the relations subsisting within the
congregations and between the congregations of the Church.
It creates none. And it does not imply, but distinctly states
these relations.
L Its main purport is the distinct accepting and absolute
deciding of an appeal from the church of one nation to
another in reversal of an ecclesiastical decision by the Bishop
of Rome*. The sole rule to be recognised in the judgment
is that of Scripture. ‘There can be no acceptance of person,
*no dispensation can be granted by any human indulgence,
‘in matters where divine prescription interposes a veto and
“appoints a law*"
11. It assigns to the Laity the right, and insists on their
duty, of withdrawing from the communion of a ‘sacrilegious’
or ‘sinful’ bishop. ‘The Laity mainly have the power in
THE SPANISH APPEAL.
J The Donatist Congregations AD.
313, in fear of the factions of the
Italian Church, appeal to be heard by
the Bishops of Gaul They were
finally only allowed three, fifieen others
being Htallans. | Optat. i. 23.
3 Ej 67. t and δ,
3 Ep. Gy. 2 intercedit, prascriptio,
Mark the hand of the Civilian in all che
terms. We have to chow between
Perscriptir Q and the original L, and
Prseriftio C, R ani the correetor of Lt
all these ate of cent. ix (Q cent. wiii—
dx); all editions had gneseripcie until
Hartel, std. his choice seems perverse,
Prascriptio is ased cbewhere by Cyp-
rian, and fvrscrijtis beyond its common.
ase for a fair copy or for a cheque re-
lates rather to the ferns of a document
than τὸ its authority, which is what ὃς
required by Phat gem.
314 THE ROMAN CHAIR.
‘either choosing worthy Bishops or in rejecting unworthy
‘ones’ ‘The Laity must not flatter themselves with the idea
“of being untouched by the contagion of his offence if they
‘communicate with a Bishop that is a sinner. ‘They must
“sever themselves from a sinful prelate’’
IIL It marks (beside other things) the presence and
testimony of Laity as required, or, as it is here expressed, as
*a thing of divine tradition and apostolic observance, in the
appointment of a Bishop,—' that he may be chosen in the pre-
*sence of the Commons under the eyes of all, and be approved
*as worthy and meet by public judgment and testimony."
“In the presence of the Commons which fully knows the life
“of each, and has discerned everyone's line of action through
‘intercourse with him*^
IV. It marks the sense that there resided no power
in a Christian. congregation which could assign episcopal
authority over itself, or commit the celebration of sacra-
mental acts to any nominee lacking the note of regular
apostolic Orders. The custom is kept for ‘the nearest
Bishops of the province to meet and the Bishop to be chosen’
not by, but ‘in the presence of the Commons.’ ‘Upon the
«judgment of the Bishops the Episcopate was conferred on
‘him, and the hand laid upon him’? —
2 The Gaulish Appeal.
the Ephesian w with the caren a
at least the ninth century or
echt Routh, 4, S. vol.
VI. rit. 2. THE GAULISH APPEAL. 315
history that he had been installed there by S. Paul on his
way to Spain, after consecration to the Bishopric by S. Peter
at Rome’.
In the middle of the fifth century fewer particulars had
been extant The position of Constantinople made it con-
venient in the West to begin to rank Metropolitans not by
the political importance of their province, but by the sup-
posed antiquity of its conversion. Still when Zosimus in
AD, 417 declared the scandalous Patroclus to be the Metro-
politan of the Provinces of Vienne, Narbonensis Prima
and Narbonensis Secunda, he only affirmed without naming
& date that Rome had sent out Trophimus as Chief Bishop,
and that from ‘his fountain all Provinces of Gaul received
the rills of the faith*^
‘The Bishops of this Province in an appeal to Leo, A.D. 450,
framed on Zosimus' words, still claim no more than that it
was known at Rome, and generally, that Trophimus had been
sent by ‘the Blessed Peter the apostle’; but that is the then
usual phrase for the See of Rome*. So far, all that stands
before us from the fifth century is a local tradition of a Roman
Missionary Bishop as Founder. But again there were old
diptychs of the church of Arles in which Trophimus was
only the second name on the list of Bishops; and thus, even
* Stephano V. Pape tributa Epistola.
ad Selvam, ἃς. Labbe, xi. 550. Ado,
Chron. At. VJ, 59.
* *Sumunus antintes ἄς." Zosimi Eg.
v.d Bp. Callie. The successors of
Zosimus, it may be observed, Boniface,
Celestine, and Leo the Great, did not
feel the necessity, and admitted the
old rank of Vienne. Symmachus ance
more rehabilitated Aries. Gregory the
Great speaks of Arles as the channel
οἵ all Gallic Christianity. See Greg.
Magn. 5f. v. 53, note οἱ ed. Bened.
dp. il. c, 782, Ven. 1244).
[The Abbé Duchesne shews that the
tiesof the ard century between Arlcsand
Rome were decayed in the 4th, and that
‘Tranealpine Gaul in practical affairs vas
drawn to Milan. Zosimus act was in
countesaction to this. The *Vicariate"
οἵ Arles in cent. vi. was isolated. and.
transient, and not effective. Dachesae,
Füstes Bpixcopans de f Ancienne Genie,
1894, 1. p. 86]
? Quesnel, note on Leon, Magn. A.
LXV, 'Preces misse, &c.' Dut has “ah
apostolis the same sense? See Tille-
mont, Mete t, amr S, Denys de Porir,
vol. tr. p» 707
316 THE ROMAN CHAIR.
if those diptychs were not accurate, it appears that there
had been a time when the name of Trophimus was not im-
pressed on the mind of the church of Arles as its Founder’,
In Gregory of Tours’, A.D. ?573—s94, we come on an
intermediate view of the story. Seven Presbyters were
ordained Bishops at Rome in the consulship of Decius and
Gratus, and sent to the great sees of Gaul, to Tours, Nar-
bonne, Toulouse, Paris, into Auvergne, to Limoges, and
among them Trophimus to Arles. The consulship of Decius
and Gratus corresponds to the ycar A.D. 250, in which year
Fabian was martyred on the 20th of January, and the see
was vacant all the rest of the year, Gregory might have
been sure that Fabian had as little to do with Trophimus
and Arles as S. Peter and S. Paul had’
But in fact a letter from Cyprian to Stephen* lets us know
who the real Bishop of Arles was at that time and for some
years after. It is earlier than the Baptismal Controversy which
began in A.D. 255, Stephen's second year* But it implies
the passage of earlier letters, a period of waiting for answers
and for action, such that it cannot have been written until
well on in his second year, Again Cyprian remarks in it that
‘many brethren had died at Arles without being restored to
‘communion (by their puritan bishop), tz these past pears!
1 Mabillon ap. Tillemont, IV. p.703-
9 Mist, Francs 1.38, .
* Pearson shewed that Sulpicius Se-
verusand the Passion of Saturnime lend — |
no countenance to these statements.
Anwal, Cypr. A.D. 354, Villy Ix. Tille-
mont endeavours to save the credit of
Gregory as a historian of the reign of
Decius by suggesting that Trophimus
might bave come on a mission to Pro-
rence then, and been consecrated years
ater. But he has also placed under
Declus the rise of Novatian, the rive of
VIL. n. 2. THE GAULISH APPEAL. 317
Novatianist bishop, whose name was Marcian, must have
governed the church of Arles from 251 at latest to 254.
Marcian not only exercised the harshest puritan discipline
in the perpetual exclusion of the most sorrowing penitents
even in their last hours, but he openly renounced communion
with the other bishops and took the extremest Novatianist
tone that the whole Church, by readmitting the Lapsed, un-
churched itself. The general condemnation of Novatian,
his doctrine and adherents’, did not affect the position or the
conduct of Marcian, until Faustinus, bishop of Lyons, laid
the facts before Cyprian, and together with his fellow bishops
represented the case to Stephen. Stephen took it in silence.
His broad anti-Novatianist tone would not allow him to be
hard even on a Novatianist, and Cyprian attributed this
daisser passer policy to carelessness.
Faustinus complained of Stephen in a second letter to
Cyprian. And Cyprian took upon himself to address Stephen
in strong terms as to his duty.
So much has been and still is made to tum on the very
phrases of this letter that in fairness the debated sentences
must be reproduced.
We are to observe what Cyprian recommends to be done:
τοῖο to be the doer or doers: especially to note what part
the Roman is urged to take, and on what grounds.
‘It is! says Cyprian, *esr duty to consider this affair and
‘to remedy it; thinking on God's clemency as we do, and
‘holding the balance of the Church's government, and so
‘exercising severity toward sinners as not to refuse the
* Divine healing to the Lapsed’
318 THE ROMAN CHAIK.
He therefore urges Stephen to write ‘a very full letter" to
the Gallic bishops. What he recommends him to advise is
‘that //ey, the bishops, ‘should no longer allow Marcian to
trample upon our (Episcopal) College."
As an example of what they might do, and in consistency
ought to do, he quotes the refusal of the assembled African
bishops to hold communion with Novatian after his spurious.
celebration of Divine worship and assumption, of office in
separation from Cornelius. The parallel is distinct: as the
African bishops excommunicated Novatian, so let the Gallic
bishops excommunicate Marcian.
By his excommunication the see would be at once vacant.
So far is clear. Cyprian proceeds, ‘ Let letters be dispatched
‘from you into the Province and to the Laity who stand faith-
‘ful at Arles, whereby’, Marcian having been excommunicated,
‘another may be appointed in his room, and the flock of Christ,
‘which for to-day, broken up by him and wounded, is lightly
‘esteemed, may be gathered together.’ Does Cyprian mean
that dy virtue of the letter itself Marcian would be excom-
municated, and his successor appointed ? or were the receivers
of the letter intended to perform those acts? The wording
alone might admit the former alternative as easily as the
second (though not more easily) in respect of the substitution
of the new bishop. 1n respect of the excommunication the
Latinity is against the idea that the letter would effect it.
But we observe that this second letter is to be addressed
to the Laity. The first letter which Cyprian recommended
Stephen to write was to the Bishops", urging them to action,
This is to be to the Laity; because to the Laity* belonged
the filling of the see, voided upon Marcian's excommunication,
by their election of a successor, Nomination by Laity was,
δ litere guidus abvtente Mariano the construction of this phrase sgreess
alius in loco ejus substifwatwr. Ep, 68. 3. * plenissimas litteras ad coepiscopos
‘Theabstention would have been already — nostrosinGallÓa constitutes. Bf. 68, a.
flected by the bishops, according tothe 4 ...ad plebem Arelate consistentem
tenor of the first letters: and with this — littere. | £j. 68. 3.
VIL. ni. 2. THE GAULISH APPEAL. 319
we have already seen, the rule of the Cyprianic age, and
needful for a true appointment",
Stephen is not requested by Cyprian to take any part
beyond the writing of letters in the same sense in which he
had himself presumably answered Faustinus, namely by
counselling the Bishops of the Province and the Laity of
the City to perform their several duties in respect of the
Novatianist prelate*.
He proceeds, * It is for this end, dearest brother, that the
* Body of the Bishops is great and large, knit fast with glue
*of mutual concord and bond of unity, that so, should any of
‘our college attempt the forming of a heresy, the rending and
* wasting of Christ's flock, the rest may come to the rescue, and
‘like serviceable compassionate shepherds gather the Lord's
* Supra pp. as fl, 135.
Dr J. Peters, ‘Theological
Lüsemburg (Cyjrím vom Auetlags,
Regensburg, 1877), writes, p. 478, this
shameless comment on this same pas-
agei—! According to this, each bishop,
ἈΦ 5. succewor of the apostles, is re-
sponsible for the whole: yet since their
multitude is bound together in the unity
οἵ the One Chief Head, the mode of
affording heip in extraordinary cases is
Professor xt
that bond of unity which is to encircle
all, then comes The One, according
to bis answerableness for the whole
throughout”
The very point of Cyprian's remarks
iis tha: the anited Episcopate is ‘strong:
sail fe the Chair of Puer, and the
Head: Church from which priestly wnity
took its Segineing,’ p. 414. 1 dace not.
undertake to say aedowr cr what manner
of person Dr Peters intended his readers
to understand by him *who set sail.’
Some good authority, one would sup-
pose, In point of fact it was a group
of “heretics who dured' so todo! And
Cyprian marvelling at their audacity,
asks ‘what porpose could they have
for doing »o?' and after arguing that
there was no real end to be answered,
adds ‘unles perchance that handful of
desperate ruined things counts
thority of the bishops im
tablished to be Je' Can
do more? And if amazed one asks
*Where is all that about The One to
be found?! De Peters replies "that it
was not necessary to explain to the
Pontiff his own authority.” Surely, it
‘was still Tess necessary to tell him that
‘the authority was in the Bishops, if it
was in himself.
In the teeth of & letter which
av-
Africa. es-
Pamelivs, Du Perron (sp. Walnze), and
Baronius collect from this passage *that
the Roman bishop had power even thus
‘to excommunicate, nay to deprive (any)
bishops, and to substitute fresh ones."
320 THE ROMAN CHAIR.
‘sheep into the flock’ Would not this be strange, incompre-
hensible language, if Cyprian had held that the remedy, and
the application of the remedy, throughout the world lay in an
over-arching supreme pontificate of Rome? Unity is oneness
of a number, and so Cyprian invariably writes.
Cyprian next, after picturing the state of Marcian's people
with two fine images sketched from his own familiar African
scenery,—from the half-ruined coasting-harbour, and from the
caravanserai occupied by brigands—proceeds thus. *We,
“dearest brother, must take to ourselves our own brethren,
“escaped from the rocks of Marcian, and making for the
“Church's harbour of safety, We must provide them such an
‘hostelry as the gospel speaks of, where the Host may take
‘care of them,’ With the person of the Pope full in view
before him, and directly addressing him, he describes the
remedy as being in the hands of many, not of one, in ‘our’
office, not ‘thine.’ ‘For,’ he continues, after citing Ezekiel’s
denunciation of the heedless shepherds, ‘albeit we are many
shepherds, yet we have but one flock to feed’ Is this
the language of one who held that on carth there is one
shepherd, as well as one flock ?
‘We have to maintain the honour of our predecessors
*Cornelius and Lucius,...whose memory, much as we revere
‘it, ought to be much dearer to you, their representative"
‘and successor. Full of God's spirit, planted in the glory of
‘martyrdom, they decided for Restoration (of penitents)...
* And this is what all of us altogether everywhere decided,...
‘for among us in whom was one spirit there could be no
“diversity of sentiment, And so, it is plain that one whom
“we see entertain different sentiments does not hold the truth
*of the Holy Spirit as the rest do.
‘Intimate to us distinctly who is put into Marcian's place
‘at Arles, that we may know to whom we must commend
“our brethren, and to whom we must write.”
3 Ep. 68 3 *..copiosum corpus est — ! Vicarius, Bp. (8. s.
*sacendotum.. .ut.. subveniant caeteri."
VIT. it. 2. THE GAULISH APPEAL. 321
So ends the letter: a letter as independent as it is deferen-
tial, Not such as an Archbishop of the Roman obedience
could by any possibility address to his Pope. That there
was such a thing as a patriarchal Primacy; that the Bishop.
of Carthage acknowledged the one chair in the West which
apostles had planted; that he counted it a duty of that see
to be to other sees a remembrancer of duty and purity; that
the Roman sce had naturally close relations with the sees of
"The Province; all this is true. It is not perfectly exact to
say with Pearson, 'Cyprian asks nothing of Stephen which
he is not ready to discharge himself, without the addition
that he held it Stephen's duty to mave first. Cyprian, even
in his ill-repressed indignation at Stephen's indifference, gives
him a place and name before his brethren, But—without
entering now into the infinitely graver questions of uncorrupt
truth, pure worship, and paramount Scripture as essential to
the validity of rights and tenure of any sec—such primacy
was not historically a dominion either secular or spiritual.
Of control in things of faith, of jurisdiction to be exercised
administratively, executively, or legislatively in another see,
of sole or immediate supremacy without appeal, this letter
presents no least trace,
And now, lest it should be imagined that Romish claims
are such as find any countenance in the concessions of im-
partiality or in the analysis of truth-sceking, we may finally
contemplate Professor Dr Peters’s summary of this Letter,
"Cyprian here concedes and ascribes to the Successor
*of Peter “the ordinary and immediate Jurisdiction " over
‘foreign Dioceses; and consequently over the whole Church',’
Mgr. Freppel alone could outdo this; and he does.
Cyprian...sees in the Roman pontiff the guardian and the
‘defender of the canons for the universal Church; the bishop
‘whose jurisdiction, far from expiring on the confines of a
? De J. Peters, Cyprian tou Karthape, p. 479.
L3 21
THE ROMAN CHAIR,
‘province or a country, extends to the entire universe" “ Use,”
*he writes to him, "the plenitude of your authority; address.
'to the bishops of Gaul and to the people of Arles letters,
‘plenissimas litteras, in virtue of which Marcian may be
‘deposed and another elected in his place.” I ask any
‘honest man,’ cries Mgr. Freppel, ‘how should Cyprian have
‘proceeded in order to affirm more highly the primacy of
‘the pope? For the deposition of a bishop is the gravest act
* of jurisdiction one could point τοῦ"
Not only are such terms as ‘ordinary and immediate
jurisdiction’ ‘defender of canons for the universal Church,
ridiculous in their anachronism ; not only is the phrase ‘use
the plenitude of your authority’ an invention of Freppel's
own, which he prints as a citation, and comments on as
original; but the whole language of both authors is in the
teeth of the text. The text assigns the function of excom-
munication, involving deposition, to one authority, the duty
of substitution to another, and neither of these offices to
Stephen, who is simply urged to press their duty, as became
his place, upon the Bishops and Laity of Provence.
* Freppel, p. 367.
‘These writers eannot be regarded
as other than faithful exponents of the
Roman doctrine, The Bull Unam
sanetom concludes with the words
‘Subesse Romano Pontifici omni hu.
sane ereatune declanunus dicimus
definimus [difinimus] et. pronunciamus.
omnino ewe de necessitate salutis.
Baronius Anaad. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 4a
Bonifae, Pap. vili. Ann. 8, iv. A.D. 1301;
Corp. Juris Canon, Richter et Fried-
beng pars 2, eol 1246 (ed. 1881).
Kixtravag. Comm. 1, 1. tit, vili. cx de
majoritate et obedientia."
The Vatican decree “De vi ac ratione
primatus Romani Pontifcit! rans thus
‘Si quis itaque dixerit Romanum Ponti-
&cem habere tantummodo officium
inspectionis vel directionis, non nutem.
plenam et supremam potestatem juris-
dictionis in universam Ecclesiam, non
solum in rebus quz ad fidem et mores
[morem P.), sed etiam in ii quay md
disciplinam ct regimen Ecclesime per
totum orbem diffuse pertinent; aut eum.
habere tantum potiores partes, non rer
totam plenitudinem hujus suprema
potestatis; aut hanc ejus potestaiem non
esse ordinariam et immediatam sive in
omnes ac singulas ecclesias, sive im
omnes et singulos pastores et fideles ;
anathema sit.’ Constitutio Dogmatica
prima De Eeclesia Christi, cap. Wt.
(V. Pelletier, Dévrets et Canons, Paris
INTERCALARY.
PRESBYTERS AS MEMBERS OF THE ADMINISTRATION,
SOME enquiry was promised’ into the part borne by
the Clerus of antient cities, the Ordo, the Consessus or Bench
of Presbyters, in the administration of church business, It
would have been almost meaningless to map this out before
becoming familiar with the kind of transactions amongst
which their office was to be used. But some principles
of its exercise can now be readily drawn out. The later
correspondence of Cyprian passes into other lines, so that
the indications we seek cease before the great controversy
with Stephen begins.
The first epistle presents a certain Body at Carthage
*taking notice of’ a Christian’s will at Furni; a will, which,
in violation of a ferma or rule passed, with a prescribed
penalty, by a previous Council of bishops, appointed a cleric
to a legal function. This Body is not a Council, and does not
either make a rule or affix a sanction, but acts as a Court in
deciding that ipso facto the penalty has been incurred and
must take cffect*.
This Body then exerts in another town of the province,
which had a bishop of its own, authority over the clergy, and
‘The ruling ls "ian... mow εἰ qued. pro
capies, EK αν 1, dormitione eim apod ves Kat oblatio,"
the law term for magisterial coqiry. &e Afi. 3.
21-2
assessors to us'! There is an ambiguity as to whether
compresbyters’ were the Consessus of the city, or in
others who came with their bishops.
It is not then a corporate body; it is not li
certain persons, but to a certain class or classes,
nucleus and main part of it is the Consessus, the P
of Carthage, with the Bishop for its head ; it includes
bishops then in Carthage, and possibly (but this is ni
other presbyters.
Tts authority, which amounts to jurisdiction, is
In the epistle to Lucius he says that persecution has been.
test not only of the true bishop but also of the true conses:
Tt has shewn which ‘ presbyters were united with their
in his sacerdotal office" Had the presbytery then
authority, or something like it, inherently and apart from tl
presidency of the bishop? or, if not, could it by delegation of |
the bishop be invested with such authority ?
The occurrence of Cyprian's long retirement brings so
significant facts into unexpected salience, and the con
vacancy of the Roman see remarkably illustrates the case,
In three several letters from his retreat’, addressed to
the presbyters and deacons of Carthage, Cyprian requests
them to supply his Sum :—' There discharge ye both yor
own parts and mine'; 'Your diligence must supply* my
office’; ‘Discharge my function about the conduct of things
which the religious administration requires.’
He had arranged for some amount of money to be -
esta sert rea 5 Epp. $, 13,14.
aderant et eompresbyter mee qui — * Represen
nobis advidebant, £f» t« 1«
3 Kp, Gr. 3 ‘sacerdotsli Nonae. — representet, Zp. 12. 1,
‘Doth words technical,
MEMBERS OF THE ADMINISTRATION, 325
realised and distributed to the clerics that there might be
means in several hands, He had left in the hands of Roga-
tian, his commissioner, ‘a little sum realised’ apparently by
some recent sale, and sent him a further portion afterwards’,
Out of these funds he requests the presbyters and deacons
to care for the poor, the sick and strangers, for Christians in
prison, and for the bodies of those who dic under torture or
confinement’. He begs them to make such arrangements
for visiting prisons as will least provoke suspicion, and to
calendar the dates of martyrdoms and confessors’ deaths
and communicate them to him for remembrance in his daily
Eucharists.
In common with the Plebes, this clerical body was usually
consulted by Cyprian on the merits of persons proposed for
Ordination, They were thus fixed upon ‘by counsel in
common,’ but exceptions, at least during his absence from
Carthage, were frequent. He sends to them the names of
several men whom without such consultation he had ad-
mitted to Orders, some of them to a seat in the Consessus,
to daily allowances and the monthly dividend *.
He urges them to promote among the people habits of
fasting and prayer for the internal reformation of the Church,
and for its outward deliverance; to instruct the ignorant,
? Sommula,..colacta, ΞΡ. 1. De
quantitate mea peopria.,.aliam partion
nem, Sp. technically ἃ
LL. vin. ἵν 265
capital as opposed to rune, In Ef.
39 (n. 3 inf) it has no sense of allow-
ances, but is simply even sums.
* Jii. and Bp. 1.
3 Epp. 10, 38, 39, 46. EA 39. 5
t. presbyteril bonorem designasse nos
illis jam sciatis, ut et sportalis idem cum.
presbyteris honorentur, et divisiones
mensumas xequatis quantitatibus par-
Hiantur, emori nobiscum provecti et
corroboratie atiis uiis..." "Every pres-
byter had bis standing allowance out
of the church-treasury ; besides the
same allowance called spertula [cf.
Ep. 1.1 " sportalantium fratrum", some
also had their portion im that divi-
dend which was the remainder of the
month's expense; thirdly, out of the
presbytery under him the bishop as
thon had a certain namber of the
gravest who lived and commened al-
ways with him,’ Hooker vit. xxiii 9.
Sesruri mobiccum, &c. means not this
(though the fact may be so) but their
future place in the consessus, as "no-
biscam sedeat in clero, Ag. 46.
326 INTERCALARY—PRESBYTEKRS AS
but especially those confessors, in or out of prison, whose
spiritual self-satisfaction made them not very amenable*, —
So far, nothing is enjoined on the Body except a faithful
performance of their individual clerical duties. He regrets —
their imperfect performance of their prison-duties, especially
with regard to religious instruction,—duties always hitherto
recognised, he says, as their proper work*.
Strenuous admonition on their part, he insists, was re-
quired. And in virtue of the cpiscopal energy (sacerdotit
vigor?) which he had now to exercise from a distance, he.
endcavoured through them especially to prevent the breaking
down of discipline.
Do we here find duties of a more governmental character ?
He declines in the fourteenth epistle to take a step which.
had been suggested by four of the presbyters, without
first recciving counsel from the Body of the presbyters and
deacons and being also informed of the judgment of the laity.
This step was the restoration of some of the Lapsed to
communion. When in spite of his message the four admitted
them, he considered that the Body had failed in its duty of
repressing them, and he appeals to the laity to keep the
Lapsed quiet* Later on*, writing to the laity, he commends
the special activity of three of the presbyters, and of the
deacons as a body, in encouraging or in deterring the lapsed,
There is still no exclusive authority recognised as inherent
in the consessus. The disciplinary duties here particularised
are of the moral order, and can scarcely amount to more than
persuasion. They are capable of being discharged by the
laity, failing trustworthy clerics,
The only authority which, in Cyprian's opinion, could, as
we have seen, decide on the whole wide policy to be pursued
was a gathering of co-episcopi, and further they too must have
1 Ep ταν αν ἂν 8. 3 Bp. 14.41 Ef 17-0, ἃν
* Epp. as 16. ? Ej 4}. 1:
Ὁ Ep. 20.2.
|
|
MEMBERS OF THE ADMINISTRATION, 327
ἃ common understanding with the bishops of other countries.
The only authority which could under that policy decide on
the reinstatement of individuals was an assemblage in which
both the clergy and the laity of their own Church should
with the bishop at their head examine and conclude cach
case’, In this function the weight of the laity was such that
they vetoed some whom Cyprian and others would have
restored", while elsewhere he expresses regret at having in
some cases overruled them. Their right as laymen to abstain
from communion with a Lapsed or a Novatianist Bishop
is affirmed again and again*.
We found no particular authority assigned to the Clerus
in the election of a Bishop. Their part was to bear testimony
to the life of the person proposed for election. The laity
elected; the neighbouring bishops assented and ordained'.
Cyprian's letters to Cornelius, in which the principles of
the coming legislation were discussed, were ‘always read
aloud' by Cornelius to the clerus and the laity together
—to the most flourishing clergy which sits with thee in
*the foremost rank, and to the most holy and most honour-
‘able commons*"
Whilst therefore its counsel was of the greatest weight
and import in the deliberation with the bishop on all the
greater affairs of the Church, we find no trace of authority
or jurisdiction belonging to the Consessus as such.
The level of moral influence which belongs to it stands
markedly apart from the way in which, for instance, excom-
munication was inflicted,
In Cyprian's absence excommunication was imposed di-
rectly by ἃ commission appointed by himself, consisting of
three bishops and two presbyters*. It is true that he com-
mended the presbyters and deacons of Carthage for resolving
+ Ep. «5. Bi Bp 61. 8.
* Ep 59.19
* Ep ge
INTERCALARY—PRESBYTERS AS
not to communicate with Gaius of Dida, a presbyter, and his.
deacon, after these had anticipated the Church's making of
rules for re-admission, but it must be especially observed that
this resolution was taken upon the counsel of colleagues of
mine, who had frequently warned Gaius against the step,
who were now presentes in Carthage, and thus completed a
body like that which Cyprian had presided over in the first.
Furni case, namely, the clerics of the city (c/eriei srbiei) and.
bishops, whether of the Province or from beyond seas He
then adds his own episcopal direction that any, whether home
or foreign clergy, who in like manner anticipate the Church's
own ruling are to be similarly withdrawn from.
To these bishops presentes he desires that what he
writes on the course to be followed may always be communi-
cated at once. They evidently clothe the presbyters and
deacons, in the absence of their own bishop, with a sufficient.
episcopal authority. We may just mark (though without stress)
the distinctness with which they are mentioned as contributors.
to the subscription raised for the Confessor Bishops in the
mines*; but an apt instance occurs in the second city of the
province, Hadrumetum. Its presbyters and deacons had, in
the absence of their bishop, placed themselves in communica-
tion with the new Bishop of Rome’, before his title was
cleared. Cyprian and another bishop arrive, and are pra
sentes. Upon their authority communication is suspended.
We are now in a position to gain a clearer view of the
principles on which the presbyters and deacons of Rome
had acted in the vacancy of the see, after Fabian's martyrdom,
Even in the eighth letter, in which they describe them-
selves as ‘we who scem to be sct over them, to lead the
1 Fp. a4 v Dida, otherwise un-
known. Moreellis conjecture "Idensis — sacerdotum nostrorum, qui et ipti, eum.
not likely. It was too far off in Maure. — pras sent, ex suo plebis um
tania. nomine, quedam pro viribus contu
5 Κρ. 62. § Cyprian with his own — lerunt, nomina addidi."
quontitar sendsthem nlistofsubsribers δ Ef 48, 1, %
MEMBERS OF THE ADMINISTRATION. 329
flock in place of shepherds,’ the extent of what they claim
to have done is only to have been active in keeping people
from lapsing,and in recovering the Lapsed to repentance—their
due spiritual ministration in time of danger. Their statement
in the thirtieth letter that all they had done was done with the
help of the Confessors shews that they had no idea of a
constitutional power devolving to themselves in the vacancy,
But when they have ofücially to resolve that the adoption of
à permanent system must wait for the determination of a new
bishop in consultation with themselves, with the Confessors,
and with the laity, this constitutional conclusion is formed in
a meeting at which are present neighbouring bishops, bishops
then visiting the city and bishops exiled from their dioceses,
Again, afterwards, when the Novatianist Confessors wished
to return to the unity of the Church, the course taken was
this, Delegates of theirs seek an interview with the Pres-
bytery. The presbytery desire the attendance of the whole
number, examine them, and report to Cornelius full par-
ticulars, Cornelius next summons the presbytery, and with
them five bishops, then presentes*. They determine on their
course, each opinion being recorded. Then the Confessors
are introduced, and make their petition orally, The ‘ people"
are admitted in large numbers, to hear the confession, and
resolve upon it. The scene has been described above,
The result is this. When the see was vacant, or the
bishop absent, the episcopal functions of hearing, judging,
ruling (quite apart from the sacred offices of ordination, &c.)
did not pass into commission in the hands of the clerus, but
were reserved whenever it was possible And by the atten-
dance of other bishops, any steps of discipline which had to
be immediately taken received an episcopal sanction. Hadru-
metum, Rome, and Carthage, as well as the minor cases of
Assuras* and Furni yield one result.
? Omni acto, Zp 49. 2 qui et eodie presentes foerum. Ef. 49-2-
? Adfueruntetiam presbyteri quinque — ? Kj 6.
330 INTERCALARY.
The contrast is manifest between what could constitution~
ally be done by the largest clerus in the most influential
position, and the power and responsibility attaching to the
least prominent bishop. It is no account of the facts to
say that the scheme carefully examined yields no trace of
presbyterian government. It is an absolute negation of the
presbyterian idea, It is an equally complete negation of the
papal idea. Scarcely less does it contrast with that modern
sharpness which would fence off each diocese as a preserve in
which neighbour bishops have no concern or interest. The
true capitular idea is there, but with a flexibility and width
of which we are not yet capable again.
"The Epistle of Firmilian (Eg. 75. 4) has to some seemed to speak.
as if in the general Councils of the East bishops and presbyters
sitting together regulated church affairs in common, ‘..apud nos
“fit ut per singulos annos seniores et prepositi in unum con-
‘veniamus ad disponenda ea que nostre cure commissa sunt^
Ritschl, however, points out (p. 157) that the Greek original must
have been ol πρεσβύτεροι oi προϊστάμενοι, and the 2/ due to ἃ mis-
understanding of the translator. Similarly (Ef. 75. 7) *...quando.
‘omnis potestas et gratia in ecclesia constituta sit ubi president
* majores natu qui e£ baptizandi et manum imponendi et ordinandi
‘possident potestatem’ Ke compares Vis, ii.
πρεσβύτεροι of προϊστάμενοι τῆν
"seniores qui presunt ecclesias, ai
29. 1, from which it is clear that bishops alone formed the Eastern
Councils.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
Veri similitudine aberrante à veritate.
2 Aoc. de CarwMaandis Rudi, c. V.
TIERE is an carly and rather graceful martyr-tale which
Baronius welcomes as history, and which Tillemont smiles at
himself for admitting to some consideration on account of
its honest mien’, It is called the ‘Acts of Hippolytus,
Eusebius, and their Fellow-Martyrs. Hippolytus is a Roman
recluse who lives in a sandburrow in the Crypts, or Cata-
combs’, and there conceals for some time his converted
relations. The difficulties of maintenance in such a place,
the unhistorical details, and later features shew the story
to be pure romance,
The principal personage is Pope Stephen, who is intro-
duced to baptize the multitudes whom Hippolytus Christian-
izex The well appropriated by the story to his use is yet
near the old entrance from the sandpit-road to the Cemetery
of Domitilla on the Via Ardeatina*. This character in which
Baronius, Anmates, A.D. 389, v — ? J. HL. Parker, Archaategy of Rome,
xii. Tillemont, Netesé cur 5. Eremwe, pr nile The Catacomda, set, v1. p. 8g.
Y. IVs De 893» On one side of the original en-
» In cryptis,..in arenario, trance and like it belt of beaatiful
332 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
Stephen appears, as the Great Baptizer, is the rude form -
which the main episode of his life assumed among the simple
It is with that episode that our next group of letters and.
documents is concerned. This group includes Epistles 69 to
brickwork is the
the ΤᾺΝ well. The
which the pitcher hung; in the wall I believe, they have
‘on ove Fight, the conduit and basin to.
VIII. THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION. 333
75 and the ‘Judgments of the Eighty-seven Bishops" They
belong to the years 255 and 256 A.D, Their exclusive subject
is'Rebaptism, For although Cyprian protests’ against the
application of that term to his view, catholic teaching insists
on the assertion which it involves.
The simplest lines on which our investigation can advance
will be—I. to give what we perceive of the earlier opinions
forming Cyprian's tradition; IL next to describe the
positions of the two leaders and the action and documents
ofthe contest; — III. then to group together the rcasonings
urged on either side of this great argument.
A great argument it is, in spite of its narrow form.
"The first questioning was 'How can profane waters bless?"
It means at least this;—'A Soul longs to be baptized into
“Christ. A mistaken, erring, even an immoral believer does
‘in intention baptize it into Christ. Is that Soul in fact
‘baptized into another than Christ, or into a socicty other
*than His Church? Or, is the baptized proselyte of a
‘heretical sect a baptized Catholic in spite of circumstance δ᾽
The decision which the wise and loving Cyprian formed and.
laboriously propagated was to deny the reality of all such
baptism. This is that grave anti-catholic error of his which
not only struck unperceived at the root of the spiritual con-
stitution of the Church, and threatened to number her among
her own sects, but in principle withdrew the virtue of the
Sacrament from the immediate ministering of Christ present,
and attached it to the human agent,
The difference was great. Yet not for a moment did
Cyprian dream of severing the connection between his own
church and the churches which he conceived to be in
error. Not for a moment has the Catholic Church ceased to
revere him as one of her most authoritative fathers, O sf sic
4 Bp. 73. 1. However, the Nicene — chureh baptsum which it orders for
Council, canon τῷ, adopts deaffewri- — returning Paulianists.
Tesi as a word without a sting, for the
334 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION,
omnia. The bounds which of necessity, as men now believe,
part many sects at present from the Church are like low lines
of hill in comparison with that mountain-range of difference
on fundamentals which lay between Cyprian and those from
whom he dissented.
The distance between their possibilities and ours is the
distance between a great age of construction and an age of
minute criticism, But have we for ever lost the power of
acting as they acted? of sccing with the ‘larger, other eyes"?
To Cyprian himself in his ingenuous moderation it seemed
but an obvious course to desire ‘every man to speak his
‘thought: to judge no man: to remove no man from the
‘right to communion, if he dissents...': ‘to wait for Christ's
‘own judgment"! The Donatists, perplexed like us by this
liberality in one whom they chose to look on as their patron,
imagined it to have been a ruse to elicit free expression of
opinions; on which Augustine’s comment is that this would
have been a morality far worse than any heresy*. Equally
simple the course seemed to Augustine: ‘Put me down as
“one of those whom Cyprian failed to persuade. Never may
1 attain his glory; nor compare in authorship with him; for
‘his genius I love him, in his eloquence I delight me; I
*marvel at his charity, and I venerate his martyrdom,—but
“this, his strange doctrine, I do not accept*' The great
lesson in fact which Augustine is perpetually enforcing by
Cyprians example is the lesson of our 'liberty without
losing our communion-rights to think diversely*^
Hooker's famous apophthegm, ‘The teacher's error is the
*people's trial, —harder and heavier to bear, as he is in worth
‘and regard greater that mispersuadeth them, no way quali-
fies his appreciation of him ‘whom the world did in his life-
“time admire as the greatest among prelates and now honours
| Sentt. Epp. Proem, * Salvo jure communionis diversa
3. Contra Creseon, Se ἃν sentite. De Bapt. ἐν Donatt. Y1« vll. 19.
* e. recon. τι. xxxll. 40.
VIIL τι αν THE TRADITION OF AFRICA. 335
'as not the lowest in the kingdom of Heaven'' Taylor
vigorously sums the moral, ‘Saint Cyprian did right in a
‘wrong cause and Stephen did ill in a good cause. As far
‘then as piety and charity is to be preferred before a true
‘opinion, so far is Cyprian's practice a better precedent for
“us, and as an example of primitive sanctity, than the zeal
‘and indiscretion of Stephen. S. Cyprian had not learned
“τὸ forbid to any one a liberty of prophesying or interpre-
“tation if he transgressed not the foundation of the faith and
*the creed of the Apostles*’
1. t, The Tradition of Africa.
We now proceed to consider, as one souree of Cyprian's
teaching, the tradition which he inherited :—
The religious sympathies of the Africans flowed ever in
deep impetuous narrow courses like the streams of their own
Atlas. To make separations sharp and unkind was not the
aim of a Tertullian only or a Donatus. Cyprian himself is
not unaware of the tendency of his church to narrow its own
limits, * Certain predecessors of ours among the bishops here
‘in our own province,’ he writes, ‘have utterly refused any
‘place of repentance’ to offenders who in other churches
“were forgiven after penance.’ Nay Augustine, broader
churchman as he was, had rather a shivering trust in
even the Divine charity towards those whom his particular
breadths did not comprehend,
The ‘first of all mortals, as Vincent of Lerins puts it, to
tule that they who had been baptized by schismatics must be
baptized anew cre they could become catholics was Agrip-
pinus of Carthage’, Augustine points out often that Cyprian
Y Reclerissticat Pally; B. v.txile ge ΟΥ̓ δέσει, 23.
2 Liderty of Prophuying, Sect v. Ὁ Vine. Lir. Commun, i. 6,
336
is unable to adduce any earlier authority than his against
‘universal, sturdy custom*.' As regards the Western.
churches the reader may accept the statement, Agrippinus
was the bishop next but one before Cyprian in his see
Under him a Council of seventy* African and Numidian?
prelates decided in his sense,
In the Roman Church on the contrary the tradition was.
clear and continuous against Rebaptism of schismatics, Some
have understood a passage of Hippolytus, which covers the
ground up to that time, to accuse Callistus* of rebaptizing
them*. But not only is the passage not susceptible of
THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION,
that meaning, but the distinct unchallenged declaration of
Stephen that his church had never allowed such a practice
* Sedit AD. a17—14 Oct. A.D, 203.
* Hippolytus, Rift Heer. ix. 13 Ἐπὶ
πούτου (ro) Καλλίστοι] πρώτωε τετόλ-
ueris δεύτερον αὐτοῦ βάπτισμα. The
words should have accurate attention:
τς not said. τετόλμηται αὐτῷ, bat ἐπὶ
τοῦτου αὐτοῖν ‘by that party during his.
bishopric.’ It is not wpóro αὐνοῖν
τετόλμηται as though whey were the
Inventors ; but ἐπὶ τούτου πρώτων *prima-
rily in his time.’ The perfect τετόλμηται
indicates that ¢Acir practice existed still
at Rome when Hippolytus wrote, and
so probably in Stephen's time, without
im the least affecting church trai
The passage proceeds, Taira μὲν ol»
ὁ φϑαυμασιότατοε KédNsror eweeri-
Ῥαῦτα refers to all the list of
Callist
was supposed to patronise, The care-
ful reader of the whole story will not
conceive that the word δινεστήσατο
is intended to state that Callistus him--
self taught Rebaptissa, but will rather
admire the skill with which Hippolytus
avoids aserting it. Nor will he have
any doubt that αὐτοῖν means a corrupt
snd evil faction who for a time were
too near the papal ehair, but fell (some
at least) into the Elchasdite deluslons,
To so much exculpation Callistus is.
entitled, but it ix positively searing to
mark the modes and motives of Roman
Catholic scholar. Even Hefele, Be 1.
ML § 4. not seeing how to deliver
Callistus from the scandal of a practice
(which is not really impated to him ba
the words) or how to disentangle him.
from his party (which is more difficult)
represents Hippolytus as saying, *Re-
baptism was introduced under Cale
in some chureher in. communion
doubt that he has in view
nus and his Synod of Carthage."
tion to these same points Fecbtrup (p. -
194 and n. 1) renders "unter Kallistus
sei das Wagniss der Wicdertaufe in der
Kirche awfrkomumen, amd fixes the
the Episcopate of Callistus A.D. 230, α
‘date which sults none of the conditions.
VII. το ας THE TRADITION OF AFRICA. 337
from the apostles down is incontrovertible’ Hippolytus
however, though Callistus bitter enemy, certainly avoids
ascribing the practice to him personally. ‘In Jd time
first hath second baptism been ventured on by fem,
that is, by the worldly, lax and perhaps licentious party
which was named after that liberal and versatile prelate.
All doctrines and practices found their way sooner or later
to Rome. This practice came to Rome in Callistus’ time,
and was adopted during his administration by the party with
whom he had been connected before he became pope, and
who were called Callistians by his enemies and theirs". Only,
whereas in its native province that practice bore a Puritan
character, drawing the sharpest line between church and sect,
it received in the Capital the quite opposite stamp; being
intended by the Callistians to open an easier way than that
of penance to the restoration of gross sinners. The reception
of schismatics followed easily, but the Church never accepted
this, nor is there evidence that Callistus himself did.
ἔγινε allow four or five years for the practice to have been
in use elsewhere before it came in at Rome, we might infer
that the unknown date of Agrippinus' Council was about 213°,
In the Council of September A.D. 256 was present onc
Novatus who had been bishop of the rich and beautiful city
of Thamugadi so Jong that he was now one of the very oldest
prelates there, fourth by seniority out of the eighty-seven.
1f our date for Agrippinus' Council be correct we can under-
d τῶν τοιούτων ἐγγῶν KdXurroo KaXu-
7ι. 2 Bi Ted» rares. Ἡϊρροίγιμιν, &ef. Her. 1x. 12-
by saying “Dillinger has demonstrated
that Zephyrinus (A.D. 199—217) ad-
mitted rebapüsm of those who had
been heretics, and as such had com-
mitted carnal mortal sins’ 1 cannot
divine, Zlizfolytus amd Mi age, v. v
p. 271 (ed. ia).
2 Τὴν τοῦ ὀνόματου μετέσχον.
RE Ee Mn Duce ed
».
338 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
stand how this old man could just speak of the members of
that Council, forty-four years before, as 'colleagues while
he also calls them ‘men of holiest memory. We can
understand how Cyprían, talking of a long-standing custom,
says ‘many years have passed and a long period since
Agrippinus’ Council,’ while Augustine, thinking of the whole
tenor of church practice, says ‘the novelty had prevailed
but a few years before Cyprian*^
An interesting question has arisen as to whether this
Council had felt the influence of Tertullian, since in a treatise
commonly accepted as catholic, and if so probably prior to
the year 200, he not only declares the rebaptism of heretics
to be necessary, but says he had written a Greek treatise to
that purpose*.
I can feel only surprise that his pamphlet on Baptism
should ever have been looked on as catholic works, Its
singularities, not to say frivolities, are as striking as its power
and grasp and goodness, and they have the Montanist tinge.
When a Catholic he did not write in the character of a Mon-
tanist, but as a Montanist he often wrote like a noble Catholic,
Neander thinks that, when under the influence of Mon-
tanism, he could scarcely have spoken as he does here of the
visible Church. But his Montanist mind is a strange stormy
study. This dogma, we should remember, was quite in the
Montanist vein’, and his belief in continuous revelation did
not obliterate respect for a solemn church utterance, though
it made him hold churchmen cheap.
He observes that ‘it would be improper to rehandle the
? Morcelli’s date a.p. 197,sixty yeurs — * Bp, Kaye doubts if he is right in
before, would make ‘decretum car. — following the majority of commentators
classifying
* Cf. Firmilian, 2p. 76. 4, speaking ὠ In a pamphlet which he hurled at
of Valentinus and Basilides as having — the Church as a Montanist, the Heathen
lived post apostolos ef port longam adatem. — baptived by a Heretic has to be cleansed
Ep. qi 4. Mug, de Bapt. c. Donate. 1, the men,’ his ethnic self and
ED i ic self: De Pudicitia c. 19.
9 Tert. De Baptismo, c. 15.
VIIL L 2. THE TRADITION OF ASIA MINOK EAST. 330
‘question of what should be observed as concerning heretics,
‘for it has been published to us’ His word is ‘pudlished’
not ‘handed down' to us‘, This expression can, I believe,
only refer to the Council of Agrippinus, It cannot refer, as
some wish, to the voice of Scripture, for Tertullian is the
most patient and pertinacious arguer upon texts, and never
passes Scriptural warrant with so vague an allusion. He can
only have in view some well-known, recent, authoritative
sentence, and the great Council of Seventy under the
Bishop of Carthage is fitly alluded to by the Carthaginian
presbyter in those terms.
Later on in the controversy we become suddenly aware
from the lengthy Epistle of Firmilian, Bishop of Czesarea in
Cappadocia, that there had for long past been some inter-
change of influences on this subject between Africa and the
Eastern regions of Asia Minor. We therefore look to what
we know of the judgment of these last.
La. The Tradition of Asia Minor East.
In his furiously Montanist treatise ‘On Fasting’ Tertullian
speaks with reverence of the ‘councils’ habitually held 'through-
out the Gracias’ as an impressive image of the whole Church.
He would faip see them, with their preliminary fastings, intro-
duced into the West*, We may readily assure ourselves that,
when so speaking, he had not in view councils which specially
subjected Montanists to Rebaptism as an apostolic insti-
tution for the restoration of heretics’. This would have been
3 Editum not traditue. De Bai. ts, — this helps us to fix the date of that
The difference is an accurate one. pamphlet as towards 210.0, And if
3 If this suggestion of Tertullian’s de
iun. e. 45 reasonably indieates that
the First Council of Carthage under — the de Sagvisme to about A.D. 21g oF
Agrippinus bad not yet been held (He- 3:6.
fele, Δ]. du Conciles, B.t.c. d. ἢ 4, ἢ BAI ST
22—2
340 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
more than flesh and blood, particclarly. Farbilienien EE
endurc to culogizc.
The Council of Iconium there held for Phrygia, Galatia
and the neighbouring districts is one which thus ranked Mon-
tanists with heretics needing baptism. There is no reason
for fixing its date earlier than A.D. 230°. Firmilian, writing in
256, says he had been one of the ‘very many’ who there so
ruled it*, and Synnada* which dealt with the same subject in
the same sense was probably near the same time. One of these
two is probably that ‘Council of Fifty’ which Donatists al-
leged against Augustine’. The large number of Fifty Bishops
gathered in that small locality is a note of truth, For in
Phrygia Towns and Bishoprics were identical' A system
of Rector-Bishops, which commends itself to some imagina-
tions now, prevailed there. Power vested in an aggregation
of necessarily second-rate men proved to be powerless against
those elements of faction, passion and superstition which
S. Paul foresaw might rend and end those churches,
The religious tone of Phrygia was peculiarly likely to lead
to some difficulty as to Baptism. Everything initiatory, that is.
* The date of Tillemont, 1v. p. 149,
and Valois on Euseb. vii. 7.
7 Plurimi simul convenientes in Ico-
nio diligentissime tractaviraus et. con-
firmavimus, Ap. 78. 19.
3 "The site of Synnads was unknown
until 1876, when M. Perrot found it in
the highlands of Phrygia. Tt was an
assize-town (commenfur) and the central.
office of the imperlal procenater: mar-
merum, manager of the quarries and
vast transport of bath-slabs, monolith
columns and expliels of the purple-
flecked Phrygian ae called Doci«
mites or Synnadic. ^D. 160 the
office was merged in rings new one of eo-
curator Phrygie who took the woods
and lands also. Strabo speaks of its
great ἐλαιώφυτον πεδίον, but there must
be some mistake (conj. ἀμπελόφυτον),
as olives will not grow at 3¢00 ft.
(W. M. Ramsay, Yourmal of Hellenic
διάξει, vol. vin. pp. 481, 3), AS τὸ
points connected with the Council, it
avits Dr Petere’ arguments to call
Synnada the capltal of Phrygia, but it
‘never was so until afler yoo A-D., and
then En enly of the Division *Sa-
'akes one out of many possible replies
and thereupon dates the same Council.
Hefele docs not even quote his reasou.
ὥσισωπ, fle 2, 30
Kamsoy, 7Re Cities amd
ὦ of Phrygia, 7. of H. S. es
VIII, 1, 2, THE TRADITION OF ASIA MINOR FAST. 34:
everything exclusive, was dear to the native mind. But while
Augustine remarks that fifty oriental bishops were no evi-
dence, though backed by seventy Africans, against the unity
‘of the tradition elsewhere, Iconium and Synnada must both
be numbered among the series ‘held long ago’ and ‘in many
districts,’ of which Dionysius the Great tells" his namesake
(as yet a presbyter) of Rome that he had heard, and which
took the same view as to the reception of Heretics in general.
"The firm belief which these Councils entertained that they
were continuing apostolic usage, while the very need for them
is the best evidence that the usage was far from being clear
or accepted, may connect itself with the fact that two canons,
based, to say the least, on their decisions, appear in the
Apostolic Canons.
It would not be strange if one of these
two were the actual utterance of Iconium*.
? Before a.p.258; ap, Eus. vil. 7, which
τς given in full in Note on *Dates,' p-
Mr
* dport, Can. xlv. (Dionys Exig.
xlvi.), ᾿Βνίσκοτον ἢ σρισβότερον alpeti-
gie δεξάμενον βάπτισμα [ἢ θυσίαν] καϑωι.
pela tos wporráoaourr. Ths γὰρ συμφώνην
διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ πρὸν τοῦ Βελίαλ ; ἢ sí
nagle wueroi μετὰ ἀνίστου; The manifest
interpolation ἡ ϑυσίαν has no place in
the Latin rendering of Dionyslus.— Cau.
xlvi. (D. xlvii.) "Erlexorot 3 πρεσβύτεροι
τὸν κατ' ἀλήθειαν ἔχοντα βάπτισμα ἐὰν
ἄνωθεν βαπτίσῃ, ἢ τὸν μεμολυσμένον παρὰ
τῶν ἀσεβῶν ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσῃ, καθαιρεί-
bo, ὧν γελῶν τὸν σταυρὸν καὶ τὸν τοῦ
χυρίου ϑάνατον, καὶ μὴ διακρίνων ἱερέα!
τῶν ψενόιρων.
45. “Bishop or Presbyter admitting
baptism of heretics we appoint to be
deposed. For what is Christ's consent
to Belial, or what the faithful man's
part with the faiihless?"
46. "Bishop or Presbyter, if he bap-
tize anew him that hath a Baptism ac-
cording to truth, or if he baptize not
lim that hath been polluted of the
dmpious,—let him be deposed, as one
‘that mocketh the Cross and the Lord's
Death, and discerneth not priests from
the false priests."
"These canons are plainly the work of
different legislators. One clause of the
second covers the whole ground of the
first. They allege different specimens
of the then popalar arguments. Only
the fmt of the two appears in the
Coptic Code (Hanten, Hidpolytus amd
Ais ap, vol. tt. p. 228, ed. 1854). We
might have fancied that, were they
actual canons of Iconium or Syanada,
they would not have escaped some allu-
sion to Cataphrygians, Bot Firmilian
shews (AA 75. 19) that the Iconium Ke-
342 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
Evidence there is none to enable us to answer the in-
teresting question whether Tertullian's Greek Treatise had
influenced the decision of the Greek Councils If it were so
his weapon was strangely turned against him. ,
One far-fetched theory is that Tertullian actually con-
demned Heretical Baptism with the aim of procuring an
oblique sanction for Montanism from the Catholic Church,
which he expected not to condemn its advocate: nay, that.
he was so far successful that Synnada left Montanism in
consequence untouched. This view, not baseless only, but
contrary to the facts of the documents, is worth noticing only
as an instance of the modern Roman determination to trace
every anti-Roman fact to condemned or suspected sources.
outside the Church. Tertullian is to be the great *First
“cause of the Innovation introduced as well into Africa as
‘into the East.’
11. 1. Position of the Leaders.
Tertullian then, whether he contributed or no, through
his treatise on Fasting, to popularise in Africa the idea of
Councils, cannot, at least by his treatise on Baptism, have
affected the Agrippine decision. Tertullian with his spiritual
allies and Agrippinus with his Bishops were alike carried
on by a rising wave of rigour, which ewept across Asia Minor
and Africa, was observed from Egypt as it passed, and just
reached Rome, there to affect only a miserable sect, In the
more tenacious Asia the practice of Rebaptism, once ratified,
appealed to as still more important?
Firmilian appeals to that Council's de-
cision as final, and Dionysius to both
it and Synnada as most weighty.
? Fechtrup, ps 195, alleges no evi-
dence except the writing of that treatise
in Greek. Unhappily such things well
expressed pass for evidence. Dr Peters
(p» 498) rejoices to think the notion la
‘his own. ‘Diese Behauptung ist nea!’
‘We will lament for him that Dallinger
should have anticipated him (see Doll.
Hipp. und Kallist. y. 191), only Dül-
linger observes its fearful effect on
the longevity of Firmilian and dates
Iconium about A«D. 231.
VIILIL p POSITION OF THE LEADERS—CYPRIAN. 343
quietly held its ground, In busier Africa it quietly went
much out of use, so that Cyprian, while he declares that
‘thousands of heretics have thus become churchmen through
‘the Laver of Life,’ has nevertheless to meet the argument
that numbers of them had been received without it, and had
fallen asleep in the bosom of the Church’ [ had continued
in Numidia since the old Council, but a change of feeling
forces her bishops to consult Carthage afresh, And Augus-
tine confesses that he 'scarcely knows what Cyprian means
‘by saying that the practice had prevailed from Agrippinus’
‘day to his own; for, he rationally asks, ‘what occasion was
‘there for Cyprian's three Councils if all Africa had but one
‘custom? or why should Cyprian have argued to Jubaian
‘that he was making no change, since Agrippinus had deter-
‘mined it before? or why should so many of the Bishops
‘have advised [in the Third Council on Baptism] that reason
‘and truth must be preferred to custom"’—if the fact were
not, as Firmilian allows, that, while Asia had maintained the
doctrine and the practice, the practice of Africa had diverged
from the theory*?
We have seen all along that Cyprian's most brilliant
characteristic was that he quickened anew every languishing
organ of church life and inspired with fresh forces each doctrine
which worldly peace was holding lightly. In the most vigorous
time of life he first received both doctrines and ordinances
into a vivid intellect logically trained. He could not accept
them merely. They must live. They must be lived. To
such 'late-learning' leaders of great movements it has not
unfrequently happened that some one point bursts out of
its desuctude upon their imagination with disproportioned
power. In his case the exceeding delight of his own reali-
EA py ἃ and 23. Dr Peters Catholics whom he is disparaging. But
points out, p. 497, note g, that Ter- — the beating of the words js arguable,
tullian, de Padi. 19, seems to ey that — 3 ZA. To 71.
Rebaptism was among the Montsniss — ? Aug. de Supe c. Dewalt, τς xii. 17.
("et apud mor), a& in contrast to the * EP TS τῷ.
Church provoked no mere retaliation, it is im
think that it did not stimulate the sense that
matics were themselves excluded by an earlier fla
the observation that they had suffered so much less in.
persecution; and awaken a confidence that the
church duty would, if revived and insisted on, exhibit te
men the fact that Novatianists were not church people
A half-worldly temptation strangely reinforced BP
enthusiasm.
‘When therefore the question arrived in simple
“Are we of Numidia right in rebaptizing, or are y
Carthage right in ignoring the standing order?’ it was
a crotchet which Cyprian took up, The whole man
on fire.
It is only through these facts that we can account
what we have now to study and lament; the precipi
and the passion which possessed him and the many ἢ
whom he had by this time moulded to be like him.
was inevitable that sooner or later the broad and the
theories should collide, because they were theories em
in daily usages.
Some indication on the part of Stephen in favour of
heretical baptism was the occasion of the conflict. Wh
the incident was to his honour or no, |
Eee eines abn aupepulu parcangns Foi ERG
1 See sup. ps 15, d Denatun. ferent interpretation proposed by Μίδας
* Peters, p. $10 n. speaks ofa dif- self and not approved,
VIIL πὶ 1. POSITION OF THE LEADERS—STEPHEN. 345
conduct nothing but good has resulted. His tolerance. of
Novatianism, and his patronage of lapsed bishops, may
make it probable that personally he was biassed, though in
the right direction, by little else than his vague liberality.
But it is at least possible that his motive was the exact con-
trary of this; that he interposed with a necessary correction
of the Callistian Liberals, who doubtless were prepared to
purge errors of belief as they purged errors of life, by second
baptism.
‘It must move our wonder, says Cyprian in his first
letter on the subject’, ‘nay rather our indignation and grief,
* that there are Christians found to take the side of antichrists ;
‘that shufflers in the faith, and traitors to the Church, take a
“stand within the Church herself against the Church. Now,
‘since these allow (notwithstanding their usual pertinacity and
*indocility) that heretics and schismatics alike do not possess
‘the Holy Spirit, and that accordingly, though they can
‘baptize, they cannot impart the Holy Spirit,—here we con-
' vict them ;—namely, by pointing out that such as have not
‘the Holy Spirit cannot baptize at all’ In enquiring who
his earliest adversary was, it is noteworthy, though not in
itself sufficient index, that 'pertinacity and indocility’ are
the particular virtues which Cyprian steadily assigns to
Stephen.
Next, an Italian localisation is given to these asserters
of the obnoxious doctrine by another passage in the same
letter*, ‘Since the Church alone has the water of life, and
‘power to baptize and to wash man, he that says one can
‘be baptized and sanctified in Novatian's hands, must first
‘prove and convince us that Novatian is in the Church, or a
* prelate of the Church. The Church is one. As one she cannot
“be both inside and outside. If she is with Novatian, she was
‘not with Cornelius. But if she was with Cornelius, who
3 Bp. 69. το. ER
ta liken: soning τ he; ja contempt of arem
‘apostolic tradition, being im succession to no onc, is scl
‘produced. For in no wise can he hoki or kecp the Church,
‘who has not been ordained in the Church"
‘Tha posonsfity .nf-ihe. galampec.acxt. become D
(though as yet no mame has been mentioned) when in the
seventy-first letter’ we read, ‘We must not go by prescription.
"οἵ custom: we must prevail by reasoning: for neither did
*Peter, whom the Lord chose first of all and on whom He
*built His Church, when afterward Paul disputed with him on.
* Circumcision, insolently claim or arrogantly assume anything.
“to himself, declaring "that he himself held the primacy and
‘ought the rather to be obeyed by novices, and men (called)
‘later than himself”; neither did he look down on Paul, as
‘the Church's former persecutor, but he adopted the counsel
*of truth, and readily assented to the legitimate system that
*Paul maintained ; giving us thereby 2 lesson in unity and
"patience, not to hug our own fancies with sertinacity, but, if
‘our brothers and colleagues offer upon occasion useful and
‘wholesome suggestions, rather to make those our own, if
“they are truc and regular’
Although he may in these passages include other and.
nearer neighbours; whether bishops who in the first Council
dissented from his views, or that remarkable Unknown Author
(he may have been one of these) from whose pen we have the
fine contemporary tract ‘Of Rebaptism*'; yet plainly the
one prominent figure before in whose opposition all
other opposition was merged, is none other than the Bishop
of Rome. And in Stephen's tone there had evidently been
some personal disparagement, as well as some uncalled for
measuring of the popedom of Rome against that of Carthage.
Ὁ Ej neg 3 Vid, inim p. 35%.
VIIL1L 1. POSITION OF THE LEADERS—STEPHEN. P
Then flowed in upon Cyprian (not, one would infer’,
without something of concert with himself) a series of formal
letters, known to us only by his replies, requesting him to
deliver his opinion upon the subject. The original enquiry
was whether a baptism among the adherents of Novatian, the
accuracy of whose creed was unimpeached, might be accepted
as valid, when such persons turned to seek admission among
the Catholics, The question then ran through degrees of
misbelief until the case of Marcionites, and perhaps even of
Ophites, was debated", Stephen made no difficulty about
including, Cyprian about excluding, one and all. But for
the ordinary African bishop who felt the puritanic tendency
of his people towards Novatianism, (a tendency which
had already surged up in Montanism, and was to break
over them yet more terribly in Donatism,) and who now
saw Rebaptism used in this alone of all heresies as its
characteristic initiation, it was no slight dilemma which pre-
sented itself in the question, Was the adherence to this
almost isolated tradition of Africa itself a dangerous, a puri-
tanic, a practically Novatianistic departure from the breadth
of catholic use ?
Dates (Council of ceninm and other).
Eus. H. E. vil. 7. (1) Lipsius (Caron. d. Rimischen Bischife, pp. 219,
20) argues that the Synod of Iconinm was /afer than the Synod of Antioch
A.D, 253, because it appears from comparing Euseb, vi. 46 with vii. 4, 5
that after the unexpected harmony at Antioch they felt anxious lest the
question of baptism should divide them. But surely this is no argument
for dating any one particular Synod. For we might equally well apply
it to others, one by one, and conclude that aif Baptismal decisions were
later than the Council of Antioch. (2) Lipsius argues that since Cyprian
was npéros τῶν τότε (Eus. vii, 3) who held this particular opinion (ἡγεῖτο),
therefore Cyprian’s rupture with Stephen preceded the Council of Iconium,
3 The series i5 oso complete s» to Afiican Layman, s. From the Bishops
suggest this. As the three Councils of Numigi, 3. From two Bishops of
represent, i. Africs, s. Africa and Nur Mauretania,
midia, 3 Africa, Numidia and Maure- ᾽ £9. 73> &-
tanís, so the letters are, r. from an
348 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
which he accordingly dates 255 A.D. But certainly Eusebius does not
mean to contradict the statement which he quotes (vii. 7) from Dionysius:
who in A.D, 256 writes that Rebaptism had been held ‘long ago,’ πρὸ
πολλοῦ, κατὰ τοὺρ πρὸ ἡμῶν ἐπισκόπους, ἐν vais πολνανθρωποτάτωιε ἐκκλησίαι!
καὶ ταῖς συνόδοις τῶν ἀδελφῶν ἐν ᾿ἰκονίῳ, καὶ Συνάδοις xui παρὰ πολλοῖς τοῦγο,
Tofe» nor yet can he mean to deny that the Council of Agrippinus
had so ruled in Carthage itself, But if πρῶτος τῶν τότε affects the date
of Iconium it must affect the date of Dionysius’ Councils, and that of
Agrippinus too. Mark too that the τῶν τότε is in the very next sentence
to his distinct expression (vil. 2) ζητήματος οὐ σμικροῦ τηνικήδε duaxuenBévros.
"The fact is, Eusebius means exactly what he says. Asin Minor
had quietly continued, Africa had in many parts quietly dropped the
practice, and Cyprian was the first τῶν τότε, ive. of his contemforariet,
to moot its reaffirmation,
Lipsius is driven by his own special pleading to say that there were
two synods at Iconium ‘which must not be confounded,’ one of A.D. 255
mentioned by Firmilian, and the other much earlier named by Dionysius;
both about the baptism of heretics ; both making only the same declara
tion, at considerable interval. Sufficiently improbable. Besides, Fir-
milian attended the one he mentions, and he, writing in 256 A.D., speaks:
of it (EP. 75. 7) as having been held jam pridem.
Of Roman writers, Baronius and Labbe? were an: to believe this.
synod was held in Stephen's time, and thereby to justify his behaviour.
to the East. Dr Peters on the same side* places it ‘not in the second,
but very early in the third century’ in order to enable it to have been
misled by the pamphlets of Tertullian, and this induces him to put
Synnada earlier still, and at the same time as Agrippinus’ Council.
"The order in which Dionysius names the two synods is rather against
the general assumption that Synnada preceded Iconium,
The following then ave the approximate dates which appear probable
in respect of the conditions with which we are acquainted.
Zephyrinus Bp. of Rome AD. 199—217.
‘Tertullian becomes Montanist cim. 106.
» writes De Jeyunto cire. 30
Council of Agrippinus circ.
Tertullian's De Baptismo
Callistus Bp. of Rome
Council of Iconium
Council of Synnada
2 Baron, Asim AD, 258, xiv.; Labbe
A.D. 288, in spite of Pagi and Hardain
VIIL 11. 2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS.
Il, 2. Acts and Documents.
Our clearest method will now be first to describe the
Documents, and then to draw out by themselves the Argu-
ments, which are so often repeated that chronological analysis
of the letters would be wasted here',
Magnus, a layman, whom Cyprian treats with respect and
affection, writes the first letter—an enquiry whether Nova-
tianists should be accounted as other heretics in the need of
church-baptism on recantation, In Magnus’ circle the old
canon was plainly not forgotten, and the plausibility of an
exception is obvious.
Then followed an application from eighteen bishops of
Numidia, These had continued the practice which they and
their predecessors had helped Agrippinus to establish"; but
the movement of the times, especially perhaps among the
laity, required fresh consideration. The reply to Magnus
came from Cyprian*; that to the Numidians from a Council
which he soon convoked, of thirty-three bishops of Africa
with the presbyters of Carthage*,
This is CvPRIAN's FIFTH. COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE and au ue
FIRST ON BAPTISM, A.D. 255. po
The seventieth epistle is their conciliar declaration, con- c ὧν, Top
firming that of the old Council of Agrippinus, That neither the ims
baptism nor the confirmation of heretics has any value: That Pius Felix
converts from a heresy can only through baptism enter into is s.
the faith and unity of the Church,
"This decision seems to have been not unanimously arrived Eg
1 We may repeat that the group in- — kreis' apparent init. But as his reply δ 1
clades Epp. 69—T5 and the Sententio
Epéscogerum of tho Third Council, and
belongs to the years A.D. agg and 956.
? Ep του te
ἢ Ep. Go. Rettberg (pp. 190—192)
assigns to this letter the same date as
to that which answers Pompeius, Ap.
74 on account of the same *Ideen-
to Magnus is rested upon his own view
and arguments without reference to
eouneils, it certainly precedes all the
council. That to Pompeius alludes
(8p. 74 13) to the fine Council (£g.
Το. 1) if not to the second.
4 Bie
350 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
at. Cyprian describes it as the judgment of ‘very many
fellow.bishops'; but he laments the fact that ‘certain of
our colleagues are guided by some strange confidence’ to
the other opinion’,
Next comes a Mauretanian bishop, one Quintus’, enquiring
through a compresbyter Lucian; he is answered by the
seventy-first letter, with the seventieth, already in wide circu-
lation, enclosed*. The tone of Cyprian is as of one who has
suffered slights. It is clear that the tone of the Roman bishop
was already becoming injurious; clear also that unanimity
had not yet prevailed in Carthage.
At this time, without one allusion in it to the embittering.
controversy, Cyprian published his tract, * Of the Excellency
of Patience, to be a calming note in the awaking storm.
Very little later in date, and similar in purpose, is his
“Jealousy and Envy’; equally reticent on passing circum
stance, except for one slight touch upon Novatian. These
shall be examined later. Now we need only name them as
further illustrations of Cyprian's vision of a new philosophy of
moral feeling, adjusted to the new doctrine and proportioned
toitsstandard. And we may think of the angelic spirit of
the man who, when passions were rising on every side, read to
himself and his combatants lessons so sweet and so stern,
A Ep. pod durior. .cenmuerimur.
here scems to be not equivalent to fa
‘numerous body and all of them,’ because.
the phrase describing the objectors, gwí-
dam de collegis mostri (which is repeated
in £j. 71- 1), is not apparently ἃ mere
plural equivalent for quí Aoc ili patre-
cinium de ua auctoritate fesstat, who
must be Stephanus, and who fs again
meant in £f. 71. 3 primatum, &c. (see
note 5, p. 351).
ΖΡ. rie 4. Quintus and his coghis-
τρί are spoken of as il/ir, and informe
of the state of things in Africa:
din which followed Agrippinur' Council.
I doubt not that Quintus is the Bishop
‘of Burue who spoke in the Seventh
Council, whom extant Mss. call Quietus,
ὅσῃ. Epp. 57 (see Appendix on Lists of
Bishops, p. 864). Morcelli thought o.
bat merely through misreading, for there
is no sar. if. Fechtrup confounds him.
{p. 202) with Quintus of Aggys which
VIII tt. 2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS. 35r
Next year, A.D. 256, the question occupies the Bishops a.m 256.
in their Council before Easter; the SixTH UNDER CYPRIAN ἴσος
and Second ON Baptism. They were seventy-one fares
number’, They formulate into a kind of Canon, applic- Maximus
able to clergy who had joined heretical or schismatical Addws
bodies and then recanted, the same practice which they Glabrio.
had adopted as to lapsed Clerics, namely to restore them.
simply to Lay-Communion. They decide that baptism is
mecessary for all converts from the sects. They adopt the
terrible phrase of ‘the stain of profane water bespotting’
those baptized with it *.
We must note that now the prelates of Africa and
Numidia* are sitting together, and are unanimous under
Cyprian in re-affirming the old decision of their own prede-
cessors under Agrippinus, A synodical letter from them
was forwarded to Stephanus at Rome, The letter to the
Numidians and the letter to Quintus were enclosed with
it It is an unconciliatory document, and hints conscious-
ness of the offence which it will give’.
Stephen had however among Cyprian's bishops those who
sympathized with him^: one of these, or, as it has been
surmised, Stephen himself through them, circulated an au-
thoritative paper, recognising the baptism of even Marcion*
by name. A copy of it, with some other arguments, was
* Quidamdecollegisnostris, £9.71. 1.
Cf. Quidam de collegis, Sent. Zep. 49.
Quidam nostri prevaricatores veritatis,
Senet, Epp. 38, and sce note t, p. 3:0.
his first letter, to Magnus (Ap. 69. 16).
Optatus endorses it, solely with reference
10 the Patripassians, Bk vee αν
? In A.b. 312 the relations of Numidia
to Carthage were not held to be def-
nitlvely settled. Hefele, B. 1. c. δ,
5n
‘ does not seem to have
seen this letter, which ix strange.
Jerome mentions it ade. Luciforion, af.
© BA 73-4 Cl. Aug, de Bapt. c. Do-
matt. Vit, xi. (ye). Rettberg, p- 178 cites.
Coustant, Eg. foni, p 326, and agrees.
that this document was a copy of Ste-
phen’s letter to the East. No evidence,
Peters thinks that it was the extant
tract De Rebaptirwat, which renders
it doubtful whether he can have read
that tract through.
352 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
forwarded to Cyprian by Jubaian, a prelate of Mauretania,
who felt himself much exercised by their strength. The
Mauretanians had not been represented in the old Council of.
Agrippinus, and the opening now occurred for securing them.
upon a new one. Cyprian answered these, and in so elabo-
rate a form, that at the final Council he read his answer
as the complete exposition of his views, supplementing it
with Jubaian's grateful and convinced reply. This letter was
accompanied to its first destination by copies of the docu-
ments that had been sent to Stephen, and a codex of * The
Excellency of Patience."
A deputation of bishops from Cyprian now went to
Rome and waited upon Stephen, as bearers either of the last-
named or of some separate epistle, Some little graciousness
might have made much of so conciliatory an act. But (so at
least Firmilian relates the incident amid his condolences") no
audience was allowed them either public or private; and the
Roman congregation was desired to shew them no hospitality
or attention*.
Nevertheless, the letter was answered", and that in terms
appreciative of the importance of the situation and of the
greatness of the baptismal gift’, large in charity towards
Separatists, and not deigning to argue at length. Stephen
asserted in it the apostolic authority of a distinct tradition
for the Roman usage’, magnified the chair of Peter*, and
vituperated Cyprian as ‘a false Christ, a false apostle, a
treacherous worker"
Lamentable language: yet Cyprian's qualification of dis-
sentient colleagues as ‘Fautors of Antichrist’ and ' Traitors
to the Church"' laid him open to it.
1 Ep. 7536 and the Africans together, a theory not
* Labbe, Cone. ts l.p. 77tvmakes this — ye
anembassyofexcommumicated Oriental ἢ Ap. 74. 1 * £p. 18. 17.
bishops. But the reference of the 4 2 (compare £f. 73. 13).
quibus is to evlieum (Bp. 15. 25) he — δ Eje 18. 17.
Africans; or else to both the Orientals? Af. 75-25. * Ep. 69 το.
VHT. τι. 2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS. 353
Stephen however had by this time issued a paper? which
awakened a universal storm of indignation and dispute*
among the Bishops of the East*, or, according to the more
guarded statement of Dionysius the Great, among the Bishops
of Asia Minor, He threatened to withdraw from their com-
munion.
To assume that Stephen had already rebuked these
Bishops of the East when Cyprian first mooted in Africa
the question of rebaptism* is one of the Roman modes of
at once exhibiting his vast jurisdiction and of softening the
blameworthiness of his asperity towards so great a saint.
But this was not so. The thought contradicts all our docu-
ments upon critical examination’. Stephen quarrelled with
Cyprian first, and then turned on those who were sure to side
with him. No doubt the relations of the Roman bishop with
the East must have been somewhat complicated by the pro-
pension which the late patriarch of Antioch had exhibited
V Ἑπεστάλκει μὲν οὖν rpbrepor, Euseb.
H.R. νὰ, 5
ἢ Ep. 19: 24 ‘Lites enim ot dissen-
siones quantas parasti per ecclesias
totios mandi ?*
A Ej γ8. 18.
4 Euseb. vil. 5,
? So Maran and Hefele, B. 1. c. ll.
46. Rettberg agrees.
* Apart from the erroneous date a$3
which Maran (Vir. Gypr. xxix.) and
others have assigned to Stephen's de-
nunciation of the Orientals in order to
bring it earlier than his controversy
with Cyprian (since we now know that
Stephen's accession was not earlier than
about May 12, 234), the conclusion is
against the whole tenor of our docu-
ments. 1, How Eusebius writes wo
have seen (Note ou Dates, p. 34).
The strife ts seem by him
in Cyprlan’s movement and Stephen's
indignation. 2, Dionysius in the frag-
ment of his Second Letter preserves a
L3
fmgment of lis First, In this the
words ὡς οὐδὲ δεείνοιε κοινγωνήσων διὰ
τὴν αὐτὴν ταύτην αἰτίαν clearly shew
Stephen to be already for the same
Baptismal cause in collision with some
‘other church: and none but the African
is posible. 5. Dionysius” series of
letters has one to Stephen in his three
years! sent and three to his successor
"who sate one, It uay falely be inferred
that the close of Stephen's time saw
the commencement of the correapon-
dence. These pointsare brought out by
both Peters and Fechrsp. On the other
hand Maran urged a rhetorical phrase
of Fiomia's (A 25° wu) “Stephon
ih the Easterns, now
334 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
toward Novatian, nor was it a meaningless anxiety which
lurked under Stephen's complaint of ‘treachery.’ But it was
ἃ weakness and an error to urge upon such men an un-
reasoned conformity; to threaten that he would hold no
communion with bishops who used second baptism. They
had what they thought immemorial usage* and their recent
Councils behind them; and he but smote a rock. The most
conspicuous Churchman of the day, Firmilian, metropolitan.
of Cappadocia, replied ‘Thou hast excommunicated thine
own self.’
Did Stephen excommumicate the Bishops of the East?
Our only original materials for settling whether Stephen carried his
threat further are Ep. 74. 8; 75. 24; Dionys. ap, Eus. vii. S. There
is, | think, just critical light enough to arrive at the fact. Supposing
Dionysius had written that Stephen ἐπεστάλκει Gri οὐ κοινωνήσοι (as.
Thucyd. 8. 99 writes ἐπεστάλεει.. ὅτι οὔτε al wjer παρέσοιντο &r.) even
this would not have said more than that he threatened. But he writes
ἐπεστάλκει ὡς οὐ κοινωνήσων, and this subjective sr marks a distinct sub-
traction from the actuality of the verb [being used as Henri Estienne
says "cogitationis vel consili indicandi causa quo quis aliquid facit vel
facere se simulat velaliis videtur! Thesaurus G. £. ed. Hase, and Dindorf.
Vu col 2085. L.] (Winer, Gr. Gr. Part 111. 65.9.) Also Cyprian says.
Stephen ‘sacerdotes...adstinendos Putat" (Ef. 74. 8) and Firmilian “putas
‘omnes a te abstineri posse! (75. 24). Both imply that the note had been
sounded, but not that the deed was done. If these passages proved
the excommunication they would prove it to be earlier than the Third
Council, but Cyprian’s speech Je Epp. Procm.) shows that ‘com-
pliance" had not then ‘been enforced by terror.’ *...quisquam nostrum"
there cannot of course mean Africans as against Romans,
Dionysius the Great,
Two of Stephen's leading presbyter:
sius a learned? successor of his own, in the first instance
shared his views and supported his action. Later on they
! *A Christo et ab. Apostolis! Ej. 9. λόγος re καὶ θαυμάσιον, Eus, vii. 7.
751%
VIIL nt. 2. ACTS, ETC—DIONYSIUS THE GREAT, 355
consulted the great Dionysius at Alexandria’, He replied, as
he himself observes, at first briefly and then at some length.
In the fragment of his letter to Philemon, which Eusebius has
preserved, he mentions that from his predecessor Heraclas he
had received it as a rule, not to rebaptize returning heretics :
but he is here speaking only of such as had been baptized
before their error: an exception which even Cyprian allowed*,
Clement of Alexandria had however more than doubted the
reality of heretical baptism, for he glosscs one of the strange
phrases interpolated by the Seventy in the ninth chapter of
Proverbs ‘so wilt thou cross over the water of strangers’ by
the words ‘Wisdom here accounteth the heretic baptism to
be no native, genuine water*^^ But no Egyptian synod had
then taken up the question, and determined it. So far from
this, that Dionysius of Alexandria in his letter to Xystus
of Rome* relates a moving story of’ his own resistance to
the entreaties, tears and prostrations of an aged Catholic
who discovered his own Baptism to have been utterly hereti-
cal. He encouraged him to have no scruples; his long life
in the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ counter-
vailed every incompleteness. He failed to persuade the old
man, who dared not communicate and scrupled, as if un-
baptized, even to attend the prayers. Yet, although ready
to be advised by Xystus, Dionysius could not upon his own
convictions give way: so important did he deem it that the
relations of communions to each other should not be at the
mercy of the weak and scrupulous. Again we must remember
11 am not clear that they did not
write to Dionysius even in Stephen's
lifetime. ,. συμψήφοιν πρότερον Στεφάνῳ
participle in the absence of any limiting.
particle (and if they had just written
he would have said γρόψασι) is rather
Amperfect than preseat—were core:
spondents of mine.’ But it ἐν in his
letter to Xystus that he mentions the
fact, and the fuller letters (which re-
main) are written in Xpstuy time.
? Kmceb. vil. 7. BA 74. 1
? On Prov, ix, 18 διαβήσῃ Oey ἀλ-
Ἀδτριον-ατὺ βέντισμα τὸ αἰρετικὸν οὐκ
οἰκεῖον καὶ γνέσιον ὅδωρ λογιζομένη (Zo~
da). Strom. 1, nx.
* His stb oo Baptisma, Euseb. wii. oe
23—2
of the sectarian, and that one trait of this
that by Rebaptism ‘he sets at nought the Holy
presbyters, with Stephen's theory. But he was
he admitted the Baptism of Montanists, at which
about the Godhead, But here Dionysius was better
It is difficult then to reconcile with these
facts which we know, Jerome's statement that Dio
‘consented to the dogma’ of Cyprian‘, Still it
argued that Basil would not have been so surprised as
at Dionysius, if his view of Montanism had not seeme
exception to his view of other heresies, and that he
have been more surprised if he had admitted the bay
of all. For Basil is mistakenly persuaded that a
had been already at that carly date defined between
and schismatical baptism and that the latter was a
Perhaps we may infer from all that is before us
Dionysius held a policy not unlike Basil's own about
Kathari: and would have had every country observe its
tradition. While he himself would have accepted Step
clientele, he was not willing that Africa and Asia sl
interfered with, Such a policy suits the broad and
character of Dionysius mind and the hypothesis ha
the various statements.
? Euseb. H. E. Vii. 8 deed
his fifth letter and Cyprian's “Novatian- — Euseb. vii. 5
enses rebaptizare, Ep. 73. s it is plain -
that Rebaptism is meant.
VIIL it. 2. Acts, ETC. —DIONYSIUS THE GREAT. 357
His middle position is not that of one who is not strict
or whose mind is not made up’. His information increased
with his enquiries, but his views and his conduct were con-
sistent throughout. His view was that heretics may be validly
admitted without second baptism, but that churches which
ruled otherwise must not be overruled from without. His con-
duct was very decisive. Thanks to Eusebius we possess the
outlines and fragments of five Letters which he wrote ‘On
Baptism' to Romc* His First was to Stephen; a full*
letter, called forth by one from Stephen, of which the
address is not given, but the subject was ‘about Helenus of
*Cilicia and Firmilian of Cappadocia and all (the bishops)
‘of their provinces and of all the neighbouring tribes.’
‘About them’ he repeated the censure and the threatening
with which he had already approached Cyprian, declaring.
"that he would not communicate with them either, and ‘for
the self-same cause.’ Dionysius addressed him in the in-
terests of peace. He delineated the restored tranquillity
of the Eastern church, Persecution past; the Antiochene
Patriarch who had leaned to Novatian succeeded by one of
comprehensive sympathies; Jerusalem, Caesarea and Tyre, the
Syrias and Arabia grateful for Roman beneficence; Meso-
potamia, Pontus, Bithynia—all exulting in brotherly concord.
The chord which plainly he hopes to touch in Stephen's
heart is the near fulfilment of the Pentecostal foreshadowing.
Of Saint Luke's list are wanting only Parthia and Persia,
for Egypt and Rome are the correspondents and Africa is
the unnamed subject. ‘How grievous,’ is Dionysius’ evident
inference, ‘that such unity should be vexed by threatenings.’
Of the three next letters we have spoken already.
"The candid and enquiring mind of him who was not afraid
358 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
of studying the attractive literature of heretics, because (as
he tells the Roman presbyter) the Divine voice reminded
him that he was ‘capable of criticizing and that such fearless
study had brought him to the faith at first, comes out in
delicate touches. His earliest letter urges on Stephen the
general ground of the peace of the Church, without refer-
ence to authority. Of the Rebaptizing Councils he then
seems to know nothing. But to Xystus he writes, *I find dy
'enquiry that decrees have been made in this sense in the
“greatest episcopal synods, and to Dionysius ‘I Ave larrut
this too, meaning the copious precedents, and particularly
the Councils of Iconium and Synnada'.
Greatly then to be regretted is the loss of a sixth
Letter—written in the name of the church of Alexandria
by their bishop and containing his final discussion* of the
whole question, We may nevertheless be assured that his
conclusions were the same pacific and truthful ones to which
he pointed all through. Had he really decided either for
Rebaptism (as Jerome heard) or against Cyprian, this would
have been the most important factor in the controversy; and
Eusebius could not have failed to record it. His silence
implies that he had already indicated sufficiently the lines
laid down by Dionysius the Great.
To return to Carthage. One last enquirer now appears,
Pompey, the bishop of Sabrata upon the Syrtis, in the later
province of Tripoli. He had received the
ments and was anxious to learn how Stephen. had replied to
them, Cyprian sends him Stephe istle to himself, with
an antidote of his own'—a fine letter though not moderate",
1 χυνθάνομαι Euseb. 7f. £. ,A«uá. οἵ his Letter; which ἐς true, but.
ϑηκα vil. 7. Lmust here justify Peters (p. letter itself, only in his
863) against Fechtrup (p. 232) in laying ac
stress on the expressions of Dionysius.
Fechtrup says that Dionysius mentions
the Councils ia his account to Xystus
VIIL T. 2, ACTS, ETC.—DIONYSIUS THE GREAT. 350
One of those which Jerome calls *a rending of Stephen and
of “ the error" of inveterate tradition. In the course of it he
lays down the principles of a true Reformation (and such he
conceived his own measures to be) in lines which the historian
of our own Reformation might adopt for his pro¢m. ‘Reli-
* gious and single-hearted minds have a short method to dis-
‘burden themselves of error, and to discover and develop
‘truth. For if we turn back to the fountain-head and source
‘of the Divine tradition, the human error disappears; the plan
‘of the heavenly mysteries is perceived, and all that lay
‘darkling under the gloom and mists of darkness opens out
‘into the light of truth. If some aqueduct, whose stream was
“ever large and copious before, fails suddenly, do we not pro-
“ceed to its fount, there to learn the nature of that failure ;
‘whether its flow has dwindled at the source through the
“drying up of the veins, or whether indeed it gushes thence
‘in full unshrunken volume, but has failed in mid course?
‘that so, if it is the fault of a broken or porous channel that
‘the water does not run in uninterrupted flow, unceasingly
‘and perpetually, the channel may be repaired and strength
‘ened, and the collected waters be delivered for the use and
‘drinking of the city in all the self-same richness and purity
“with which they issue from the spring. Even so God's priests
* must deal now, and keep the Divine charge; so that, if in
‘aught truth totters and wavers, we turn back both to its
‘source in the Lord, and also to its delivery by evangelists
‘and apostles, and our plan of action takes its rise where rose
‘alike our order and our beginning*’ Considering that in
these words Cyprian is laying the plan of a campaign against
\ EA qe τὸ ‘et ad originem de — Djouger (Mons Zeugitanus «nd Mons
minicam et ad evangelicam adque apo-
stolicam traditionem. The length and
detail of the simile may seem to point
to some recent incident of manageinent
on the wonderful Aqueduct of Carthage.
From the ‘heads’ in Zaghousn and
360 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
Rome, it is clear that Rome was not to him the ‘fountain’
or the ‘beginning’ of either doctrine or order. *
He closes his letter with a canon framed as an amend-
ment on that of Stephen with which he opens. Pompeius if
he had wavered was convinced, and his proxy is presented by
his neighbour, Bishop Natalis, of CEa, at the next Council *,
That there ἐν mo reason to suppose Letters are missing from the
Correspondence with Stephen.
‘The above is a simple and sufficient account of the circumstances of
the correspondence. Rettberg (pp. 181 sqq) admires Mosheim's *dis-
covery’ of other letters, and thus arranges the extant and
documents, t. The Synodal Letter, Cyprian to Stephen, Epistle 72.
2. Stephen's reply, fesf: Cyprian mentions it in Ep. 74 to Pompeius,
"in moderate terms as a moderate paper’; and ‘would have written more
‘harshly if he had been characterized in that letter as he was in the one
*scen by Firmilian’: to Pompeius he also uses metaphors Ip
not used in the Synodal Letter, but quoted by Firmilian as
Cyprian’s letter to Stephen ; whence is inferred 3. A reply from puri
to Stephen /ost, moderate of tone, and rereméling that to Pompeius in
argument and illustration. 4 Stephen's second reply to Cyprian, Jor;
inhuman in character; the one described by Firmilian. 5. The Lega-
tion-letter from Cyprian to Stephen, &c., Jor.
The detection of lost documents is a diversion for critics. But I see
no evidence of any of these having existed except of course the Letter
of Stephen. Evidently that which Pompeius saw was the same which
Firmilian saw, even if not the same that was sent to the Oriental
bishops; and the Legation probably presented the Synodal Letter only.
For (1) Firmilian nowhere alludes to a letter from Cyprian to Stephen
as enriched with those metaphors, &c. The Garden, the Fountain,
the Ark, the Apostolic tradition of Rebaptism, are plainly taken from
Cyprian's letter to Firmilian himself, (2) The Synodal Letter was
Cyprian’s ultimatum. — It left the question thenceforward in the hands
of the bishops. Accordingly the next declaration is ‘The sentences of
the bishops’ one by one. The force of that declaration is thus ac
counted for, (3) As to the argument that Cyprian would in writing to
Vompeius have been stung to sharper retaliation on Stephen if he had
seen what Stephen, according to Firmilian, said of him, we may consider
that Augustine was impressed by the ‘moderation’ of Cyprian; and that
there is surely strength enough in such phrases as ‘everything else,
3 Sent. Epp. 84.
VIII. 1. 2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS. 36r
‘whether haughty, irrelevant, or which Stephanus.
*ignorantly and unadviscdly wrote (Ej.74. 1), Then, seeing that Stephen's
supposed ‘moderate’ letter is described as evincing ‘eagerness for pre-
sumption and contumacy and made Cyprian in his ‘moderate’ reply ex-
claim that, if such principles prevail, ‘we must give up to the Devil the
‘ordinance of the Gospel, the dispensation of Christ, the majesty of God...
“The Church must give place to heretics, light to dark... hope to despair...,
‘reagon to error..., immortal life to death,.,, truth to fiction..., Christ to
‘Antichrist’ (Eg. 74. 8); seeing also that the same letter of Stephen's
went the length of saying that dissentient bishops should be excommuni-
cated (sacerdotes abstinendi), we may allow that it was probably in its
personal parts strong enough to have been the one which Firmilian saw,
That the Epistle to Pompey (Efs 74) and Stephen's Epistle quoted therein
are earlier than the Third Council on Baptism,
It has been maintained (0, Ritschl, pp. 115 f.) that Cyprian’s opening
address to the Third Council on Baptism, leaving liberty of action to all
bishops, is a kind of offered compromise or conciliation to Stephen ; and
that therefore the letter to Pompey (Ef. 74), shewing relations with Stephen
to be at an end, must be dated after that Council ; and therefore also the
letter of Stephen, which is criticized in it, must be a rescript of Stephen's
after his receiving the Report of that Council from Cyprian.
But the speech of Cyprian is no olive-leaf, It states the position of
tolerance which he takes as against one who wants to make himself a
bishop of bishops, and who by ‘tyrannous terror’ sccks to force obedience
‘on colleagues. (Sentt. Epp, Proem.)
‘Again the extracts from Stephen's Letter, contained in Ep. 74, are
mainly angumente, (rom practice of heretics, from traditions, backed by a
threat of excommunication—the very point touched in Cyprian's speech —
arguments embodied to be refuted in a long argumentative letter from
Cyprian to a neighbouring suffmgan who enquires ‘what reply Stephen
has sent him to ourdocument'—gwid mihi ad litteras mostras...rescripserit’.
‘They belong to the progress of the discussion; and wear no semblance of
a Roman ultimatum answering the ultimatum of a Council of three pro-
vinces ; and the letter which cont them makes no allusion whatever
to a Council so important, as settling the whole question for all Africa,
that, if it bad sate and reported before that letter was written, it could not
‘but have been mentioned.
1f the contents of one letter ever established its place in a series, the
ath letter to Pompey and the letter of Stephen which it quotes preceded
the Third Council.
3 ETH
362 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
That Ef. 72 to Stephen is rightly put down to the Second Council on
Baptism not the Third,
It has been ingeniously maintained (O. Ritschl, pp. 114 61) that Epistle
72 is the Synodal Letter not of the Second but of the great Third Council:
(1) Because it takes that standpoint as to the liberty of bishops which
Cyprian takes in his address to the Third Council. Answer. It is the
same view which Cyprian uniformly takes. Cf, Ef. 55.21; 69.17; 23.36.
(2) Because, if the Spring (or Easter) Council had already sent so decisive
a letter to Stephen as this 72nd no third Council need have been specially
convened, as this was for September the same year, Amrwer, Stephen's
reply to the Second Council-letter was so truculent, as its relics in Bf. 74.
shew, that it was essential to present to him the strongest African front
possible. It was therefore necessary to convene the Mauretanians, as
well as the Africans and Numidians who formed the Second Council.
And Ritschl himself thinks this was so important that he actually believes.
(p. 117) that the determining to convene the Mauretanians was a solid part
οἵ the business of the Second Council. [He believes also that he has
shewn that £f. 74 and its quotations from Stephen's letter, are later than
this Council; but there he fails, See last note.] (3) Becmese the
mention of the Second Council in £f. 73. 1 does not imply that a letter
was sent to Stephen, Answer. lt was not absolutely necessary to say
so in telling Jubaian what the resolution was, even if a letter went to.
Stephen. But the position of the Third Council is rather that of a
tremendous demonstration, by an utterance obtained from every single
bishop, upon Stephen's threat of excommunication, Their mere opinion
had been sent to Stephen before, more than once, and it does not appear
that any letter was sent by the Third Council The Sextentie were
enough. (4) Because (p. 116) letter 72 itself states that the Council from
which it emanated was a specially convened one‘ Ad quedan disponenda
necesse habuimus...cogere et celebrare comcilium whereas the Second
Council was the ordinary i
Carthage. — Answer.
"venientibus in unum sta a sacerdotibus 'ogere et celebrare concilium o.
sunt. Sed de eo vel maxime.
*tibi seribendum, &? (Ef
here Cyprian plainly
dunity of ‘many bishops x ld ‘a Coun
examine, and formulate certain things, and ths
on which he wrote to Steph here
ward and disposed of/—It seems as if
scarcely be given of the annual «
"VIII. 11, 2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS.
363
‘being turned into the Second Council of Carthage under Cyprian on
Baptism, ‘The letter says it came from such a body’
"To this I must add that the description of Council IL in £f 75 1
answers almost in words to the deseription in £f. 72 of the Council from.
which itselfemanated. Thus
Ef. 72. Y convenientibus in
unum pluribus sacerdotibus..de eo
el maxire tibi scribendum,,.quod
magis pertineat..et ad ecclesia
catholic unitatem..eos qui sunt...
profano aqua labe maculati, quan-
do ad nos, . venerint, baptizari opor-
tere....Tunc enim demum plene
sanctificari, .salutaris fidei veritate
servatum,
Ef. 7% Ὁ cum in unum con-
tuaginta et unus, hoc..firmavimus.
statuentes unum baptisma esse
quod sit in ecclesia catholica.
constitutum...non rebaptiari sed
baptizari a nobis quicunque ab..
profina aqua venientes abluendi
sint et sanctificandi salutaris aque
veritate,
(5) Because Ej. 75. 1 says nothing about the »eu/fa which £. 72. 1
says were handled in its Council Amswer,No. For Ef. 73isanswering
Jubaian’s question as to what had been done on ewe point.
(6) 1 add that it is a very strong point indeed that £y. 72 mentions
as documents issued by Cyprian prior to its own Council only £f. 70 and
71 (to the Numidians and Quintus), and does not name 73 (to Jubaian)
which Cyprian, after it was written, used quite as x manual (as it is) of
arguments on his side, and read as such to the Third Council. If Ef 72
had emanated from the Third Council it must have mentioned this £f. 73.
Ritschl tries to meet this by saying that £f. 73 was too rude to Stephen
10 be sent to him—which is feeble, considering the language which was
undoubtedly sent. Besides, how could that hold when the Epistle had
been already read to the whole Council?
I know how troublesome all this detail of restoring the documents to
their right order is, but what else can be done when such ἃ scholar as
Ritschl takes such infinite pains to dislocate them ἢ
That Quictus of Buruc who spoke 27th in the Seventh Councit is Quintus
the Mauretanian, recipient of Ep. 71.
Hartel gives the name of the bishop of Burue who spoke in the
Seventh Council (Senét. EJ. 27) without various reading as * Quictus.’
So do most editione But Parnile in his text, Morcelli, and Labbe, τ.
Bro, xxvii, and Index, have ‘Quintus: Here is perhaps an indication
1 For younger readers may I observe
that /irmsare conailium does not by itself
imply an affirmation of a previous de-
cision? In Ep. 73. tit is the word
demus which gives that sense; but in
ip Tte meni i the wand wl
of Agrippious bizwelf,
364
‘that there were some MSS. which read ‘Quintus.’ But however that may
‘be, observing the verbal and material correspondences between this short
speech and Cyprian's letter to Quintus the Mauretanian Bishop (Ef. 71).
I cannot doubt that the speaker was Quintus himself, There are these—
(a) The passage Qui a mortuo in Sivach 34. 30, and the strange
argument about baptism by the dead (p. 411 inf.), are nowhere used by
Cyprian except in his letter to Quintus; and in the Council no speaker
except this (Quietus or) Quintus employs it. (6) Sem/. 27 qui ab haere-
ticis intinguuntur. ZY, 71. 1 qui apud haereticos tincti sunt. (c) Sent 27
‘uno vitali baptismate quod in ecclesia catholica est, et sanctificari de-
bere...Ef. 71. 1 unum baptisma esse; quod unum scilicet in ecclesia
catholica estet sanctificandi hominis potestatem. (4) Semt. 37 cur
ad ecclesiam veniunt?,, cognito errore pristino ad veritaiem cum poeni-
tentia revertuntur. Ef. 71. 2 ad ecclesiam revertentes et
agentes..peccato suo cognito ct errore digesto, (¢) Sent 27 si enim
qui aput illos baptizantur per remissionem peccatorum vitam gzternam
conscquuntur, cur ad ecclesiam veniunt. Zp. 71. 3 sciamus remissam
im non nisi in ecclesia dari posse.
Labbe noticed a resemblance. 1 have shewn elsewhere [Appendix
‘on Cities, p. 607] that Buruc was more likely than not in Mauretania. 1
should venture to read Sentt. Epp. 27 QUINTUS A BURUC.
‘THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION,
The SEVENTH COUNCIL UNDER CYPRIAN AND THIRD
ON ΒΑΡΤΙΒΜ was held on the First' of September, A.D.
1 Mr Shepherd, Letter si. p. 14, com-
ments: ‘This Council wonderful to say
has a date.’ He might have wondered
allusions? Yet doubtless the paucity of
also that the Second (his own Third)
das a date (ZA. 59. 10). He further
thinks "it would have been far more
natural 10 have said A.D. 186 or some
such date,’ for another event. ‘This cer-
tainly would have been an interestingly
nysius Exiguus, ‘whom he would. rather
have called Magnus,’ Me
used for not knowing that
‘and events to be carefully dated in those
times and countries? For instance, Au-
gustine's letters or Tertullian's historical
hostility to even civil forms that had
bem soleonly. ned by etheniamy
δαπίαπι Donatism, nd o Berea in ΤΗΣ
‘tullian. It is hard to impugn a council's
genuineness for wanting a date, when
VILI.IL2. ACTS, ETC—COUNCIL VIT. (IIL), THE BISHOPS. 365
256'—an assemblage of no less than eighty-seven bishops Sep.
‘from the provinces of Africa‘, Numidia and Mauretania'—a
proportionate representation of course they could not be—
with* presbyters and deacons, in presence of a vast laity.
A great vision was fulfilled. It was given to Cyprian to
sec in actual presence that ‘copious body of bishops’ in
which he had long ago declared that the safety and purity
of the Church lay.
The bishops, it will be borne in mind, were the elected
judges, overseers and teachers of the Christian section of as
many African towns. No part of the Empire was more full
than Africa of intellectual, civic and financial life. The
Christian section was the army of advance in things social,
moral and religious, It was the section which at present
found it hardest to assert its rights, whether individual or
corporate, in the Empire. Yet it was developing new insti-
tutions theoretically and practically. 1t was already creating
a new literature, and it had in its bosom the constitution and
legislation of the future. Brought up themselves in daily
sight of justice and of rule the bishops had been elected
had come to use them more freely by
degrees. On the whole we might be
content to admit for an undated Council
the excure which the Catholics allowed
for one that the Donatista relied on. ‘It
is not dated, either year or day. But
we do not mean to dispute it for that.
Tt is more likely to be duc to wnbusiness
habits than to fraud.’ See Augustine,
Brev. Collationis cum Donatictis, tertii
dici, cc. xiv, xv. Bj 2f and a7. Cf.
Nesnder (of. cit.) vol. 111. p. 263 note.
+ Firmilian’s letter was not received
‘until the Council was over,
* Sententio Episcopornm, Preem.
Fifty-five suffrages were from Pro-
‘consular Africa (twelve of them from
within a circle of 45 Roman milex of
‘Carthage)—this disposes of O. Ritschl's.
(p. 117) view that Cyprian found it
necessary to secure the help of Maure-
tania before venturlug his step against.
‘Stephen ;—twenty-ekght from the larger
region of Numidia; Mauretania can
have sent only two suffrage, thor
namely of Nowa and Buruc, and half
an interest in the see of Tucca. See
Appendix on Cities, p. 575, and Note on
? Dr Pusey, Counce of the bi
rn Men ono
enisi dep sir Arg
the presbyters and deacons of the re-
spective bishops, ‘heir and
deacons.’ Bat the word ix not in the
texts The laity are described as σκαχέγαα
pars piebir.
AP. ag
366 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
to their presidencies because in them was recognised the true
spirit of rule, of instruction, of sensible converse with men.
"The special saintliness of asceticism, which might have pro-
€ured election later on, had not yet come into vogue. A
new spiritual power had ‘come into the world’ and it was
committed to them to exercise it in a world of realities,
The towns from which they came, and through which
they travelled, presented the social life of the age in almost
every aspect—as simple "municipia, as ‘free and exempt”
cities or ‘republics,’ or as ‘colonies’ loaded with titles and
privileges, and splendid with buildings which, like the
amphitheatre of Thysdrus, rivalled or outdid the similar
structures of Rome. Their elaborate official organizations
and their administrations, fiscal and agrarian, are as well
known to scholars as modern finance is to the officials of our
Treasury, The list of towns' shews how immediately the early
Christians faced their problems by laying hold of the centres of
life and activity, The policy of the Christian Church was in
all respects unlike that of the modern Missionary Society.
It handled christianisation as the state handled civilisation.
It began with strong focal centres. It threw out fresh
centres as fast as it could make them strong and safe. It left
mo new focus unsupported. It gave each bishop the utmost
independence consistent with unity.
Nothing can exceed the variety of the social situations.
Some of these cities were primaval settlements of Canaan-
ites, which still used and occupied their rock-cisterns and
half-solid citadels or Bozrahs o
all their accretions were yet gover yy Sufetes, the ‘Judges”
of Palestine, stamped their Phoenician names on their coinage
until late in the Empire, and served Baal and Ashtorcth in
Imperial Temples. -
1 See Appendix on the Lists of the Bishops came to the Seventh
Bishops attending the Councils (p- 568), C first of September A.D.
and Appendix on the Cities from which 956 (
VIII. 11. 2, ACTS, ETC.—COUNCIL VIL (IIT), THE BISHOPS, 367
The Homeric Lotus-land, the large low Isle of Meninx,
just then beginning to call itself Girba, maintained, as it
does to-day, a pure Berber stock which had learnt of these
Canaanites to grow the best dates and dye the brightest and
costliest purples’, They have been impartially receptive of
all the successive faiths of the masters of the mainland.
"The island rock of Thabraca, whose peak rose some three
or four hundred feet above its busy little port and the forests
of the mainland, was own daughter to Tyre, and mother of all
the coral fisheries of the Western Mediterranean. And while
the peculiar Punic fish-craft was then the wealth, as it is still the
subsistence, of Hippo Diarrhytus and other towns, the bishop
of Carpos was bishop of a bright and fashionable seaside spa.
Of many seaports represented some were still the insecure
little roadsteads which had for centuries shipped off the precious
yield of Numidian mines, and the homely produce of Kabylian
farms. Other immense elaborate harbours had grown up as
factories of Carthage; others enclosed a vast precinct for the
chief corn-markets of the world, and depots for the grain which
fed the proletariat of Rome. Of these some had once saved
their commerce by offering themselves to the Romans, as their
cousins the Gibeonites offered themselves to Joshua, or had
risen again on such a flood of exports and imports that they
despised even the cruel impost which still avenged their
resistance to Julius Casar himself.
Tripolis and the Emporia were rich and luxurious amid
unceasing wars with the invading tribes and the advancing
sands of the Sahara.
Other cities were seated among illimitable slopes of corn,
or overlooking the High Plateaux, or among the forests
through which ran chains of villages and lines of road still
1 Their bishop Monnulus i interest- that im & form nowhere else existing.
ing, not only for his ead grammar, but (Som, Ag. ro.) See Appendix ow
as using, to express ‘the ssim of error! — Citer, p» 578,
a very technical term of Dyeing, and
368 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION,
marked by broken oil-mills, dry fountains and post-stations.
Crystal rivers, which after short courses now plunge in sands,
were then banked and quayed and at last led off into a
thousand channels of irrigation.
Cirta, the old capital of Numidia, on earth's most perfect.
City-throne, was with consummate wisdom long allowed to
maintain with four antient surrounding burghs a sort of unity
or republic of their own.
The vast region of Mount Aures with its rich uplands and
inaccessible lairs of restive tribes was girdled with a ring of
strong and brilliant towns and was held chained, as it were,
to Carthage and its orderly powers by Hadrian's great work,
the new straight road of near two hundred miles to Theveste.
To that ring belonged the military centre of Lambzesis, the
beautiful Thamugadi, the most antient mart of commerce,
and Theveste, the centre of communication, And these were
model cities also, each a miniature Rome with every ap-
pliance of domestic, civic and luxurious existence that could
keep legions and tribes engaged. Not only theatre and
amphitheatre for their dissipated and ferocious amusement,
temples to the gods and genii of Health and Commerce
and Fatherland, whether Tyre or Rome, baths, with all their
amusements, triumphal arches which set forth the conquests
of the Emperors and the motherliness of Empresses, ample
basilicas ready to become churches, forums and mimic
curi in which business was discussed by orators with all
the semblance of freedom, Here soldiers had unusual privi-
leges of marriage, and their children were enrolled in an
honourable tribe,
Along the Theveste Road itself, constructed by the Third
Legio Augusta, was a line of fresh thriving stations, with
c Ὁ populous that
irteen miles or so.
Capsa ‘fenced
with sands and serpents,’ held the key of
VIIL. 11.2, ACTS, ETC—COUNCIL VII. (IIL), THE BISHOPS. 369
Tell, and controlled the caravans which laboured up and
down and across the enormous basins of the salt lakes, or
like Gemellze' created their own oasis and there held the utmost
bastion of civilisation against the Spirit of the Desert—who
after all is master.
In safer districts lay what were simply the adorned and
noble cities of Peace—Thuburbo, Assuras, Thelepte, Mac-
tharis, and many others,—above all, Sufetula, which was not
even walled.
In short, the material spectacle of these African cities was
not unworthy of their setting in Nature. And what more can
be said? There is no measuring them by our small and
sombre ideas of market towns and appropriate public works.
Yet many heathen knew that all the brilliance was dark-
ened by a reckless using up of life and hopelessness in death,
The Christian Bishop in cach knew that he and his were
armed with a message of reality. To the delivery of it it was
vital that they should be of one mind about this ‘entering
into life' Therefore they met at Carthage about Baptism.
For the present we regard the record of the Council simply
as‘a Document, The arguments which prevailed in it will
come later under review. Its proceedings were opened
by the reading of the Jubaian correspondence, and of the
letter to Stephen’, with a very few words from the President,
which Augustine justly eulogizes for their large pacific spirit*
and indomitable tolerance. Diversity in diocesan practices
had no terrors for him, although the responsibility of creating
diversity seemed to him appalling. Of creating it himself
he was all unconscious. ‘Our present business,’ he said,
εἷς to state individually our views of the particular subject
3 fis desert of Mokran is all inter. ΑἸ. 83)
sected with channels, cro dykes and — ? Sont, Hipp. 8.
ditches. Its bishop, Litteus, proves his * Aug de Bape. c. Domait. vr. i (9);
essc by a metaphor from ‘the blind — perssverantissima tolerantia, i. 5
‘eading the blind into the ditch" (Sem,
B 24
370
“before us, judging no one, nor removing from his rights
‘of communion any who may hold different views from our-
‘selves. For there is none of us who constitutes himself
* Bishop of Bishops, or pushes his colleagues with a tyrannous
‘terror to the necessity of compliance; since every Bishop
* according to the scope of the liberty and office which belongs
*to him has his decision in his own hands, and can no more
‘be judged by another than he can himself judge his
‘neighbour’, but we await one and all the judgment of
'our Lord Jesu Christ, who One and Alone has the power
'both to prefer us in the governing of His Church, and
“τὸ judge our conduct therein*! Then every prelate in his
seniority" delivered his opinion. We cannot doubt that we
THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION, 7
Ὁ Mark Cyprian’s studied use of alio
and aiterwm, In the next clause I think.
the punctuation of all the editions is
"The old papal way of handling
these thomy phrases was to turn them
to account like Baronias by saying that
Cyprian “though not over-respectfal”
‘alluded of coune to the Decree pib-
authority and headed as usual ser ma-
Bishops.” (dew. A.D. 258,
middle mode wes that of the Franciscans
R, Missori (1733) and M. Molkenbuhr
(1799) and hbishop
(1863), rent by those who fawn on him.
as ‘savant prélat’ and *docte critique"
(Freppel, p. 429 sqq. Peters, p. $4).
forgeries.
‘The third or modern ultramontane
ocu Frey fe decla
‘our attention’ and is a "chose éton-
nante’—evidently a token of "dernier
hommage" (p. 423) to the *Sovereign.
Pontiff.” So too Dr Peters (pp. 616,886)
enn see no allusion at all to Stephen. He
however happily elucidates for us what
Mgr. Freppel left dark—vie. “who then
ds the object of Cyprian's allusion?! It
is Cyprian himself, He, 2» *the bors
President of the Asembly and " Ober-
metropolit of all Africa," merely: dis-
claims amy purpose of using Ady eum
position, which actually was that of ἃ,
"Bishop of Bishops, τὸ check freedom
of expression,
He further remarks that the
war not at all designed to reply te
€
οἱ Erumus (the fist of this Council]
aad. Manutias, and in the much inter-
polated ca. Cambrontensés (Pamile), the.
VIIL τι. 2. ACTS,ETC.—COUNCIL VII. (IIL), THE BISHOPS. 371
have the very words of each of those eighty-seven men’: from
some a telling argument; from some a Scripture; from some
an antithesis, an analogy, or a fancy* Here a rhetorical
flourish, there a solccism, or an unfinished clause’, a re-
statement of the opinion in terms of an argument', or a
personal virulence or fanaticism far outshricking the usual
tone’. Two of the juniors adopt the judgment of the
majority’, pleading their own inexperience. Such weak-
nesses (except perhaps the last) still appear occasionally in
title of “Confessor” is prefixed to the
names of twelve of the bishops, υἷα,
45, 470 48, 49: $4) δ4. 48, δι, ὅς, 68,
39, B3; that of "Martyr" to 73, 76, 80;
and ‘martyr de scbismaticis! to 70,
Verulis ; that of *confessor et martyr’
to 4$ and 87. ‘These titles are not in
‘our manuscripts. Baluze ociited them
(Baluze, p. 329 and p. 6or), so Moreelli
{t- pp- 151, 226), a» not belonging to the
*gexa, as of coune they could not,
and as not given by Augustine, But
though not authentic, they perhaps pre-
serve an independent tradition. For
example, only four appear of the con-
fowor-bishops named in ZA 76, and
the designation of Verulus is interesting.
? Shephen! doubts. But Cornelius
vent in ZA 49 (2) the sentences of an
piscopal conference to Cyprian, ‘quas
subjectas eges. In Eus. vii. ay we have
+ the discmusion between Paul of Samo-
sata and Malchion taken down in short
hand, ἐπισημειουμένων ταχνγράφων..
See Polycarp of Hadmumetum,
Sent Epp p. Nemesian, the martyr-
Vishop of Thubunz, says, ‘This i» the
Spirit which from the beginning moved
‘upon the face of the waters, for neither
the Spirit can operate apart from water,
nor water apart from the Spirit." Sent.
tisma," "there has to be also cne baptism."
Hartel thinks this « corruption, but it is
African use, and even with passive ins
Gnitive. AA 55. 3 '...6fick de ecclesia
ct excludi babebat; BA. 65. 6 "laudari
etadorari haberet.' T'estim. i. 11 "quod
Set Novum Teitamentim dari haberet,"
ἃς. Mark again the entirely broken
construction of the end of Sent. 7,
and the mina τῶν doubling of *illoc*
in Sent, ag. Sent, 4 ‘Debemus ergo
fidem nostram exprimere we haereticus et.
sebismatiess ad ecclesiam venientes, qui
pyeudo-baptizati videntur, debere eor in
fonte perenni baptizari! (Cf. Ef, 79, 2
‘addimas μι. δὲν suseipl.’ Ej. 70 fin.
Vet av... daro itii]
+ So Pomponius of Dionysiana: ‘It is
evident that heretics are mot able to
baptize and give remission of sins, who
hare no power either to loose or to bind
anything on earth,” Sent. 48. ‘The pom-
potity of Felix of Uthina again is un-
mistakenbly genuine, Sow. 26,
* Sent, 37. Vincent of Thibaris; ‘we
mow Hleretics to be worse than Hes-
thens,” Wherefore he recommends that
they should be exorcised before being
baptized; a view accepted also by Cres-
cens of Cirta, δῶμά, S. Cf, Seuf. 10
"ut cancer quod habebant et damnationis.
et iram...sanctificetur*; on this remark-
able speech see Appendix ow Cities, y.
^ Sentt, 73 and 78.
24—2
372 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
debate. On the whole we can but admire the Roman pith
and terseness of epigram, the ability and even more the
temper of so great a number of speakers to a conclusion.
which we dissent from. Augustine points out the quiet
intention to adhere to unity which appears not only in
Cyprian's own words, but in such expressions of the rest as.
‘so far as in us lies! ‘with all our powers of peacemaking
we must strive,’
Cyprian in a sentence of six simple lines closed the dis-
cussion. ‘My own opinion is quite expressed in the letter to
‘our colleague Jubaian—that heretics being by formal declara-
‘tion? of apostles and evangelists styled adversaries of Christ
‘and antichrists, must, when they join the Church, be bap-
*tized with the Church's one baptism, in order to become
‘of adversarles friends, Christians of antichrists.” That
was the unanimous sense of his Council.
Firmilian aud his letter.
Our next ‘Document’ is one of singular interest, "THE
LETTER OF SAINT FIRMILIAN ΤῸ CYPRIAN.
It would be in contradiction to the whole of his policy
if we supposed that Cyprian condescended to bring to bear
upon the Council the pressure of any external influence what-
soever, If he had desired to do so, it was within reach,
After the Council had decided, immense weight must have
been added to its resolutions by the confirmation which they
received from Asia Minor. Directly after the meeting, and
so not early enough to announce an answer, Cyprian had
written to the bishop of Czesarea, metropolitan (so to speak)
of Cappadocia, a very copious letter, and accompanied it with
copies of two others*. These he had sent by Rogatian, one
1 Contestatio. Sentt. Epp. 8p. Note 3 The copious references made in
the old jurimonsul's natural use of the — Firmilian's letter to Cyprian's argu-
laweterm. are all to be found in the two
VIILIL2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS—FIRMILIAN. 373
of his deacons, who brought back the reply before the
winter’.
Caesarea was a memorable place, Its four hundred thou-
sand upland people* were even now in some unconscious way
preparing for a heroic stand within three years from this
time" against foes at present undreaded and undreamed of.
epistles 73 and 74. Careful examination
will convince the reader that nothing is
quoted (om 69 (as Ritschl p. ta9 sup-
poses), which does not appear in 73 or
in 74.
Of these Ep. τὰν addressed to Ju-
baian, was, as we have seen, used a
‘4 full manual of the question, contain-
img all carlicr arguments rearranged,
with others added. And Eg. Τῷ was
written to Pompey immediately after
the judgment of the Council, and
contained the latest view of the whole
question, and also of Stephen's present
position,
"These two letters therefore gave the
gist of all questions and arguments on
which his judgment was required and
were for this reason sent to the great
Asisn authority.
‘This answers Ritichl's question, Why,
if not all, yet at any rate the simpler
epistles were not sent to Firmilian in-
stead of the later most elaborate oner,
in order to obtain his judgment which
was required with speed,
1 d. the winter of A.D. 256, for be-
fore the neat Stephen died and Cyprian
was in exile; and the report sent
from this Council would not have been
kept back a year.
Here this difficulty is ralsed, viz, that
Firmilian, speaking of the persecution
of Maximin which followed the enrth-
quakes in Pontus ‘post Alerandruse
dimperatorem,’ who was killed in Feb-
ruary, A.D. agg. says it was ‘ante
tépinti ot duos fere annoi! (Lp 18. 10).
‘which if literally exact would date the
letter at the beginning of AD. as7- But
E eee
their inclusive mode of
is snfficiently nest.
Dr Peters (p. 516) thinks that the
delegation rudely repelled by Stephen
‘was that which took similarly to him the
‘near tothat time, See the notes of Gib.
bor's editors. Ttistotally impossible that
Firmilian's letter can have been written
soon after so fearful an event withoat
an allusion to it, considering his style;
and if it were after, It must have been
immotiatdy after. Consequently we
may be sare that the sack of Casares
was betwoen 247 aed 261,
374 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION. S
Their walls, like those of most inland towns remote from
frontiers, had long since decayed or been removed’, They
fell by thousands, choking up their own ravines before the
Persian Sapor. By thousands they were driven like cattle to
watering* They lost all things; and then they recovered
themselves as Paris only in our own days has done.
Their present native bishop, predecessor of their
Basil, was a memorable man, Firmilian, conspicuous.
family, had already, five-and-twenty years before this, become
more conspicuous in that position’. His eminent character
ennobled a race so noble that fifty years later under Diocle-
tian, the judge entreated a Christian martyr not to tarnish
its record by a criminal death. ‘But its best nobility!
Capitolina replied, ‘is that Firmilian was a scion of the
house,’ ‘Him will I follow: after him I fearlessly confess.
that Jesus Christ is King of kings*’
He had paid Origen prolonged visits in Palestine, so best
to deepen his intimacy with ‘things Divine*—no common
student of no common master, To one of these times
belongs perhaps his introduction of the awakened pagan
lawyer Gregory, afterwards the Thaumaturge, to Origen for
his many years of study in all that was knowable. He had
prevailed on Origen to come and lecture from church to
church among the towns which hung about the vigorous
plateaus of Cappadocia* And there later on, still in Fir-
milian's time, sheltering from persecution, Origen apparently
found fresh material for his lifelong study’. Firmilian
2 Wiebe, Lect, Rem. Hat. tx. Jerome, De Vir δᾶ, so, saysall Capp
Schmitz, vol, m. p. 295.
3 Zonaras xii. 23.
9 Tn aww. 331 ‘the roth year of Alex
ander.’ λύσας à V iiw Dad.
* muds αὐτῷ συν, ὦ xp
εἰς τὰ θεῖα βελτιώσεως ἕνεκα, Em 7
“ elsenehqvidv ὠφέλειαν, Euseb.vi.a7. — dicates (σημιαίνει) that be received from
VIIL 11.2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS—FIRMILIAN. 375
was admired ‘for the trained exactitude of his intellectual
facultics in philosophy and theology alike'';—*an illustrious
man,'says Nicephorus. But so Dionysius the Great*had ranked
him long before with ‘the more illustrious bishops whom
alone I name.’ The great historian of Armenia speaks of
his many works, among them a ‘ History of the Vexations of
the Church’ under Maximin and Decius? He was among
the carliest thinkers who touched with precision the facts of
Original Sin‘, and S. Basil appeals to the trcatiscs* of ‘our
Firmilian’ in evidence of the exactness of his own teaching
concerning the Holy Spirit,
one Juliana these notes (ὑπομνήματα)
with other interpretations (ὀρμηνείαι)
of Symmachus on the Scriptures, and
he says alio that she received the books
by succession from Symmachus him-
self’ The expressions sre so similar,
and the σημαίνει ix so cautious that
Eusebius must be building on a Note
which Palladiws also saw (γέ. Law-
día δ. 147, ed. Ducrus, JB. Vet,
utr. Paris 1624, L τι, p. 1049) in
Origen's own handwriting in a very old
book which was written in sense-lines
{παλαιοτάτῳ βιβλίῳ στιχηρῷ), and had
thus been inscribed by Origen: "This
book I found in the possession of
Julians, a virgin im Coearez, when
I was in hiding at her house. And she
used to say she had received it from
‘Symmachus himeelf, the interpreter of
the Jews! There is mention bere
only of one book, and that not named.
Onigen’s wort was ὐλιηφάνδι, not du-
δέζασϑωι on which any ides of relation.
ahip ests, As to modern observations
“Ὅπερ ἐγόγραπτο means ‘which book had.
been inscribed” with the words given,
fot that the book was ἃ manuscript by
Origen. Στιχηρὸν does not mean ‘a
poetical book,’ but à book written in
tense-lines, Although Eusebius says no-
thing of a second sojourn in Cappadocia,
there ie no ground to question the truth.
of Palladius quotation but the contrary.
Origen then was probably in shelier
Cane Get τὶ
of Christian
rather boldly) ; or else, being there al-
ready at work, he may have been forced
{into hiding by the measares of Serenian,
proconsul, Palladius calls Juliana
Ἀυγιωγότη xol marerdrg. The teat
followed by Meursius, Lngd. Bat. 1616,
and the translator Hervetus confuses
the sory by hiding the Book inatead of
Origen.
δ περιφανὴν ἀνὴρ wal dearipas γρώσεωε
ἠκριβωμέναι ἔχων vis Hes. Nicephorus
Callist. Hist, Eccl. vi. 27 (valeat quan-
tum, bot hie word is from Dionysius).
Sots γὰρ περιφανεστέρονε, μᾶνφνῃ,
γῶν ἐκεσεύπων ὠνόμοσα, Dion. ap.
Xoseb. vii. &.
* Moses of Khoren (te. 390—<. 48)
Hist, Armen. 1. th e. 9%.
* Routh, & S til, p- 149.
* οἱ λόγοι obs καγαλέλοικε, Basil, de
376 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION, :
His name stands first in Eusebius's roll of the great con-
temporary Church-rulers;—before Gregory and Athenodorus.
of Pontus, before Helenus of Tarsus, and Nicomas of Iconium,
Hymenzus of Jerusalem, Theotecnus of the Palestinian
Caesarea, and Maximus of Bostra'. This was after the death
of Dionysius, who may have been greater in speculative
power, whilst Cyprian had left him no room for originality:
in his Baptismal thesis,—the only document of his that we
possess, But his sense of the need of action was the wider;
his was the morc ‘choragic’ spirit, so to speak,
Dionysius wrote against Novatian. He wrote against Paul
of Samosata. Nay, he wrote to the diocese of Antioch itself.
in a tone as if their wild prelate had already been deposed,
But Firmilian was in both instances a foremost influence in
assembling the churches for fair hearings of the questions*, He
was President of the Third Council of Antioch (Second against.
Paul of Samosata) and there determinedly accepted, against.
the sentiments of the Council, the apologies and promises of
Paul, ‘trusting and hoping, and leaving him room for repent-
ance, When this charity of his proved as useless as it wag
in those days remarkable, the Fourth Council of Antioch
assembled, and whilst they tarried for him as necessary to
their deliberations Firmilian died at Tarsus on the journey.
This was the man to whom Cyprian wrote; not because,
as Romanists have hoped, the cause in his hand was pre-
judged, but because he was the foremost church-ruler of the
East,
His Letter, extant in a contemporary Latin version of his
Greek, is the most enthusiastic of the series, It has many
points of strong interest. Of the claims of the great See of
the West to guide the Cat! Church he does not write
with either awe or scorn, It is plain he had never heard of
3 Eus. . E. vii. a8. Pan rm (1) in 964, (2) at un
* He was connected with Four te between 264 and
Councils of Antioch, the first in A.D.
253, against Novatianism, and three on
VIIL 1.2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS—FIRMILIAN. 37
them’. It affirms the apostolic antiquity of the custom of
rebaptism in Asia; it touches on the annual synods of that
region, on the fixed and extempore portions of the Eucha-
ristic liturgy, on the clerical function with regard to 'peni-
tence’ being not to bestow remission of sin, but to awaken
conscience and promote reparation; the quasi-supremacy of
Jerusalem, the unity subsisting under wide division. The
conduct of the Roman towards the Carthaginian Pope he
compares without a misgiving to the act of Judas, For
arguments on the Baptismal question he relies on Cyprian, of
two of whose letters this is to a great extent an approving
digest with illustrations, It is in fact an ‘open letter, a
restatement of the case from the beginning, a contribution
to the controversy on Cyprian's side, the very force of
which consisted not only in affirming the concurrence of East
Asia Minor with Africa, but in showing how completely the
arguments were adopted there, which were urged in vain
on Italy. He says himself he had those letters by heart.
On the Genuineness of the Epistle of Firmilian.
Questionings of the genuineness of Firmilian’s letter are so mere an
episode in the criticism of it and in the history of Cyprian that it would
be waste of space to discuss any but the most recent. Others shall be
just enumerated first.
As if early doubts had existed, Rettberg (p. 189, note) under some
3 Tris almost worth while to directat- — milisn made ‘insurrection against’ the
tention to Baronius on Firmilizn (Awnal-
eel. κου. 88, xlii, —.] aa anexample of
his powers in statement and in criticism.
Cyprian (he says) tried to procure the
adherence of the Oriental bishops; Aor
since he wrote to »o remote a region as
Cappadocia be cannot have omitted to
write to the nearer bishops: Firmilian
stands convicted of a ‘patens menda-
elum* when he says that Stephen styled
Cyprian = *pseudo-ehrist and. pseudo-
prophet’; Fer neither Cyprian nor Aus
gustine mention those epithets: — Fir-
Church of Rome in judaizing with Mon-
tanints and Quartodecimans, bot was
“restored to Catholic communion” and
‘died in the peace of the Church"; or
‘he is in the Greek Kalondar—a8th Oct.
* Let no man think Firmilian persevered
ἴα bis excommunicate condition’: Mer
with others he sate in the Counell of
Antioch: — Finally, all the Oriental
‘bishops who were of his opinion about
baptism recanted next year and gave in
their adbesion to Stephen.
378 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION,
strange misconception, writes ‘Augustine was inclined to recognise the
‘genuineness of the letter as it could be used against the Donatists!
‘eruly a fine critical canon.’ Augustine seems nowhere to make any
‘explicit reference to the letter,
The Epistle did not appear in the Editio Princeps of Cyprian
‘or its repetitions (A.D. 1471—1512) because it was not in the poor
manuscripts employed, although before 1726 twenty-six MSS. were
known ati it. Again, it was not in the editions of Erasmus
(A.D. 1520—1550) because not in the Corbey ms. of the Epistles
which alone he employed in correcting the old text. But Manutius
had the epistle in two of his manuscripts, yet did not print it at
Rome in 1563: ‘the authorities; says Latino Latini, his editor (Ash.
Sacr. et Prof. p. 174 b), ‘not approving of that hitherto unpublished:
epistle being being brought out of its darkness.’ Not that he entertained the
slightest doubt of its genuineness. For Pamble having observed that
prudence would have dictated its continued suppression, ‘ow account of
“tts unepiscopal vehemence and bitterness which had led Manutius to omit
‘ity Latini comes forward (p. 177 b) to correct him: ‘It was I, and mot
*Manutius, who left it out, following my predecessors', and because T
‘detested the petulance of the man [Firmilian]#’ He did not know that
previous editors had never had his opportunities, Morel first printed it
in 1564; and then Paméle in 1568, criticizing Morel's imprudence, but
thinking the letter too important to be omitted, and administering an
antidote,
‘The first person supposed to have questioned its authenticity was
Christian Lupus in his Scholia on Tertullian’s de Priescriptionibus
(Broxell, 1675), on the ground that it could not be true, as stated in the
letter, that Stephen had called Cyprian ‘a False Christ':—*An inane sort
of conjecture,’ says Balure, p. 513, ‘against which no monument of
antiquity is safe" Poor Lupus however never doubted its authenticity.
Baluze misunderstands his rather clumsy expression ‘De cwfwr damen.
"veritate lurstto'; which meant only that he questioned whether Stephen
could really have so miscalled Cyprian, Lupus elsewhere also uses Fir
milian's episue as genuine. (Chr. Lupus, Opp. t. IX. Venet. 1727. Tertull.
de Prascriptionibus, Scholia, capp. 4, 5, pp. 67, 93.)
In 1733 Raimond Missori, a Franciscan, published at Venice two
dissertations in which he assigns the whole of the Baptismal Documents.
to ἃ race of Donatist forgers; and in 1734 R, Ὁ i
printed some " Conjectures sur la su
8. Ley de la lettre de. Firmilie
‘caused the seribe of codex O, κῶς.
VIII. 0.2, ACTS AND DOCUMENTS—FIRMILIAN. 379
besonnener obgleich eben so absprechend’ as the other. Missori was
answered by G. G. Preu in an academical disputation, Jena, 1738; as
well as by Joh, Hyac, Sbaralea, Bologna 1741. Routh, &. S. 1m,
» 156, inscribes over him only *quam infeliciter, quam ridicule’ — To
Tournemine a ‘sehr gründlich? refutation eph DACH
"Tübingen 1740*.
Routh (A. S. ΠῚ, 186) records that Matthias Dannenmayr, Zus/éfutienes,
P. 115, Vienna 1788, mentions authorities repudiating the scepticism as
Romanists; and Weismann, Jmérod. Hist. Eccl. AY, T. [Hale Magd. 1745],
vol. T. p. 249, and Koch, De Leyationiéus Ecclesiast. § xviii. p. 94, others.
as Protestants: he refers also to T. M. Mamachi, Origg. «f Awdigg.
Christian. (Rom. 1749—55] 11. p. 316. In 1799 and 93 another Fran-
ciscan revived the attack, vir Marcellinus Molkenbuhr in two Latin
Dissertations; he was laboriously refuted by Lumper (Migne, Cwrzws
Patrolog. Tertullian, vol. 11.; P. G, Lumper, Historia Theologico-Critica,
vol. Xtt1. pp. 797 sqq.).
In ἀγὸς Giov, Marchetti in his * Esercitazioni Cyprianiche, Roma
187, Nouv. Biogr. Gen.], also attacks the genuineness.
In 1817 Morcelli in his great Africa Christiana (v. 11. p. 138) strangely
rejects it, only because he cannot think that so saintly a person can have
denounced the Pope, and on the same grounds he denies the Epistle of
Cyprian to Pompey.
In 1853? Mr Shepherd ‘added to and moulded’ Molkenbuhr. His
idea is that the documents which the Romanists held so injurious to
their cause had been forged in the Roman interest.
In 1862 V, Tizzani, Archbishop of Nisibi, brought out ‘La celebre con-
tesa fra s. Stefano e s. Cipriano’ (Roma, Salvincci Him we leave to
the very tender mercies of his ashamed Romanists Dr Peters (p. 504),
and Mgr. Freppel (pp. 429 sqq.)-
Mr Shepherd's restatements and arguments, disengaged from their
liveliness, are these -
1. That Firmilian's letter is not spoken of by anticnts like Eusebius,
Augustine, Jerome, Optatus, &c., though it might have been expected of
them; especially because ‘depraved human nature’ would delight in its
‘ridicule, sarcasm and abuse!
Several treatises which Mr S, says ought to have cited Firmilian's
letter if it were genuine, are themselves, according to him, not genuine,
30 that he can scarcely argue from their omissions. But no onc doubts
Eusebius's ignorance of the West, or Augustine's of the East. Eusebius's
knowledge of Cyprianic transactions comes only from Dionysius’ letters,
while Angustine is as ignorant of Clemens Alexandrinus, of Dionysius
* Rettberg, p. 1967. ? Rettberg, sid.
? Rev, E. J. Shephent's Fifth Later te Dr Maillond,
380 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION. *
himself, of Helenus of Tarsus, and all the great prelates whom Eusebius
ranks with Firmilian, as if they had never lived. Shepherd argues a4 if
ignorance of an author's existence was knowledge of his non-existence.
Nevertheless Augustine seems quite aware that some Orientals had
mingled in this controversy—guorundam orientalium. tinerit! (6. Crescon.
iii, 1, 2)—and been influenced by ‘epistolare
Don. iii, 2), although the accuracy of his information may be gauged
by his doubts as to whether many of them had held to rebaptism,
and by his statement that they had recanted (e. Crescom fc.) Why
Shepherd thinks that ' Eusebius records none of the facts of the quarrel
“between Stephen and the Oriental churches, the probable convening
* ef one or more large Synods, and the cutting off of a large portion of the
* East from the Roman Communion’ (p. 18), is hard to say. He records
them all. 1t cannot be necessary to discuss why Jerome or Optatus do
not name Firmilian’s letter, But Basil knew and used it See note,
P. 388.
2, ‘Cyprian cam only have written to Firmilian Aecawse Firmilian
‘was, like himself, under the Roman ban, and yet the letter shows no
‘evidence of Cyprian’s knowing this (p. 20) Such a fact would have
been good ground for a forger's selection of a correspondent, and a
forger would for certain have brought out the point. The silence
then favours genuineness. But the real reason for Cyprian's writing to
Firmilian is quite different and fully brought out in the text.
3. ‘Cyprian does not even whisper the name of Firmilian in his
great Council (p. 31)" How should he? on his own responsibility he
wrote to him explaining his own position, but independently of and
after the Council.
4 The deacon Rogatian who carried the letter ‘would not have
been in such a burry to return (p. 19) It was important that he should
not only convey the reply, but also that he should anticipate the winter
at sea, beginning as we have scen on Nov. 3.
$. ‘The journey of 2000 miles in a direct line’ could not be per
formed ‘ between the end of September and beginning of November’ even
*if at that season there was a vessel sailing at all’ (p. 25). About 1400
miles is the real distance, and Mr S. has not realised either the rate of
‘Roman travelling, or the number of Roman vessels, which for obvious
reasons covered the Mediterranean ase numerously than those which
it and
Antioch, but the valley of
the Sarus readily brought the sate, from the port of Tarsus to Comana,
within fifty miles of C:
Jt is well just to the incidents of those objections 3, 4,
and 5 support each otl | speed of Rogatian's journey on the verge
i haste of Firmilian to reply, and the silence at the Council
VIII. πν 2, ACTS AND DOCUMENTS—TFIRMILIAN. 381
6. Some other ‘arguments’ are beneath notice, but the boldest is
that “the * Hellenisms' of the letter are not Hellenisms," and that there
is ‘no trace of the translator in the vest of the letter.’ Of course none
if the *Hellenisms' are not such. As to this however judicem! periti.
In the translation it is impossible not to recognize touches of Cyprian’s
style. Mr Shepherd admits it to be in the easy natural style in which
the author of the rest writes his own letters
It is equally impossible not to see the Greek :—
A. In some of the compound phrases and coupled epithets
1. magnam voluntatis caritatem in unum convenire "-- πολλὴν τοῦ
kei» προθυμίαν (cf. 2 Cor. viii. 11) ele i» συνελθεῖν. No occasion for
alacritatem, the conjecture of Routh, who points out the relerence.
3. sa Domino missi sunt unitatis spiritu velociter currentes (rayv-
δρομοῦντεν).
4. quoniam sermo divinus...distribuatur, the whole clause.
B. In the literal and sometimes awkward rendering of words:
3. fratribus tam longe fasitis (erysévoue).
4. seniores et prepositi for πρεσβύτεροι οἱ προεστῶτες, Ritschl. Cf.
sup. p. 330.
In c. 7, praesident majores nafu, where age is nothing to the point, but
the translator could not have used fresóy/rri, which would ascribe to
presbyters the power of confirming and ordaining.
$. inexcusabilem sententiam (ἀναπολόγητον)..
6. vor quí. Romie sunty..nee observari illic omnia ayualiter quar
Hierosolymis observantur (ὁμοίων καὶ),
7. possident potestatem (xeerjvrai).
Te. nec vexari in aliquo.
11. quamvis ad imaginem veritatis /tyner (sor «debra ὅμων τῆν ἄλη-
&kíac).
4h demonum fallacia fra est (αὐτή). (Noticed by Hartel, Praef,
xL, xli, n.)
E is dividwat (the true reading for induit). Cf. ἀποχωρίζοντσε và ἄγων;
πνεῦμα de) τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ vici, Theodoret, A. E. 4.9, p. 314, ed. Gaisf.
(Hartel Lz).
17. guíd alud quam communicat {τὶ ἄλλο $). (Hartel Le.; cor
rectors inserted agit) Cf. 23 quid aliud quam...bibis.
χ5. mos etiam ilios ques hi gui prius in Ecclesia Catholica Episcopi
ferant cannot be an original Latin clause, (? drove ol κατ᾽ "Exe. K, émi-
σκυποῦντες πυτὲ ἐβυπτίσαντο.) Cf. S. Luc. ii. 49 Vg. ‘in Ais qwe Patris mei
sunt, ἦν rois τοῦ Harpée,
25. uf guid illos hacreticos,.. vocamus (iva τῷ, (Hartel 4c)
382 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION,
Note also
3. quod totum hoe lit divina voluntate.
ay. volentibus vivere.
24. ...consilii e£ sermonis (Βουλῆς καὶ λόγον, should be rationis).
35. quu ipse ac merifo audire deberet (cal ἀξίῳ).
25, bene te valere ouibus stobís...optamus, ut. ,.habeamus nobiscum.
etiam de longinquo adunatos.
NS Instances in which the Greek seems scarcely understood Σ᾿
2. sed non emim si-dXX οὐ γὰρ εἰν where Hartel (p. xli. n.) would
after Noltius improve the Latin at the expense of the Greek by efiam
conjectural,
8. nisi si his episcopis gai nune minor fuit Paulus {τῶν vor).
22. ut per eos qui cum ipsi: cum unmeaning, and Hartel would omit
gti, (Potovs read as of als.)
‘There is room for differences of judgment, but the above instances
to which many might be added are fair, and together evince a Greek
original.
In c. 10 we may further notice the applicability to the conditions of
Asia Minor, and of πὸ other region perhaps, of the use of such words
as patrias was about local persecutions.
The remarkable translation in c. 24 of Eph. iv. 2, 3 "sustinentes.
invicem in dilectione, satis agentes servare unitatem Spiritus in conjunc-
fione pacis' is in the same words as in three places of Cyprian, and
differs from every other known rendering. Ef. 55. 241 De Umit. 8; De
Bono Pat. 15 (wrongly cited by Sabatier as fram De Og. εἰ E). This.
seems to indicate the use of a version which Cyprian used or made. It
is worth observing that even the African Nemesian (Sent Ek 5)
quotes the passage as ‘curantes servare
The other quotations in the Epistle are either not marked enough to
be conclusive, or may have been borrowed from Cyprian's own Baptismal
letters.
Ritschl has undertaken to dissect the Epistle with a view to shewing
that parts of it have been added in Latin by Cyprian or his party to the
original letter of Firmilian. Even if the operation had been performed
with success, what would survive of the Epistle so much more than
suffices for the utmost support of Cyprian’s 5 views, that any motive for
forgery is latent. But the destruction of nonuments by conceits
is so much to be deprecated that it is right to see how baseless the
allegations are.
Chapter 12. Ritschl decides that this is ‘von anderer Hand ange-
fügt (p. 132)
VUL πὶ 2, ACTS AND DOCUMENTS—FIRMILIAN, 383
(1) because the question of the effect of unworthiness is deduced in
€, 11 from the story of the demoniac woman.
(2) because the last words of t2 merely repeat the last words of 11.
Now this parallel form belongs to the stating of the Three Dilemmas
pointed out below, and the beginnings also are parallel.
¢. 11, Numquid et hoc Stephanus... quando apud illos omnino Spiritus
Sanctus non est.
€, 12. lllud etiam quale est quod vult Stephanus......non sit autem illic
Spiritus Sanctus.
€.13. Sequiturenim illud quod interrogandi sunt......apud quos Spiritus
Sanctus non est.
(3) because (pp. 128, 9) c. r2 is closely modelled on £f. 74. 5 only
(..sich übrigens ganz geschickt zu verstecken) and £ímcti is used for bap
disafi im order to vary the words, (On this sce ‘Quotations,’ p. 387.)
Again for the same reason ‘si non mentitur apostolus" is used instead of
‘dicit apostolus. But ‘non mentitur! takes S. Paul's words (Gal. i. 20)
from the same Epistle here quoted (Gal. iii. 27). And TERIS
swseparari is varied with mir sh.dividumt and expanded,
varying however runs through nearly the whole Epistle; only the esa
are usually more varied. The phenomena are throughout precisely those
ofa retranslation of a translation, not checked by comparison with the
originals. They are familiar to classical tutors, The points are kept,
the emphasis is different, the wording sometimes very near, sometimes
far away. In this last instance the original force of quas fossit..a
Christo Spiritus separari is increased by the retranslation πέρί sf a
Christo Spiritum dividunt. (May I here observe that iof sj with
the Indicative is used in a reductio at abswrdwm when it is meant that
the opponent is logically proved to be actually in an absurd position,
and is not merely warned off his ground by a sight of the consequences?
Compare 75. 1! nisi si.,contendunt, 75. r4 misi si..parit, 75. 21 nisi
si. praedicant.)
o pass from wording to substance. Im ec. 11, 12 and 13 Firmilian
puts Three Dilemmas to Stephen against his principle that "baptism in
heresy was Christian baptism’:
(1) Would Stephen say that baptism by a person possessed by a
demon was Christian baptism, if administered in regular form? (c. 11).
(2) The baptized, if S. Paul is true, have ‘put on Christ.’
to Stephen, they must still receive imposition of bands within the Church
in order to receive the Holy Ghost; will Stephen then say that Christ is
where the Holy Ghost is not? (c. 12)
(3) Will Stephen say whether the baptism of heretics ἐξ 'of the
flesh’ or ‘of the Spirit? — 1 it is of the flesh, how docs Christian baptism
differ from Jewish baptism? If ‘of the Spirit; how is it that they
cannot impart the Spirit? (c. 13).
384 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
Or briefly (1) Is there absolutely no limitation to efücacy through | 1
unworthiness? (2) 1f heretics impart Christ, why not the Spirit?
(3) If their baptism is spiritual, what defect in their spiritual status?
Of these Three Dilemmas Ritschl proposes to arop out (2y thas fs
ch. 12, on the above frivolous grounds.
Chapters 23—25 are also charged as a fraudulent addition to Fir-
milian’s original They form, it is said, ‘a whole” by them:
Epistle ended with chapter 22, and chapter 23 begins with
a text of Proverbs that has no connection (unvermittelt) (p. 133) with what
precedes. Further, certain words in the end of 22 are echoed in the end
of 25 (1 suppose to create a deceitful similarity, but am not sure why).
Now these are the passages :
© 22..AAnd Stephen is not ashamed to maintain this; so that
he says remission of sins can be given through them, though they
are involved in all manner of sins, as if the Laver of Health could
be in the House of Death. c. 23, What place then will there be for
that which is written “ Keep thee from the strange water, and from
a strange fount drink thou not!,” if leaving the " sealed fount?” of the
Church you take? ‘strange water? of your own instead, and pollute
the Church with profane founts?"
Even if a letter could have ended so abruptly, yet ἃ complete
‘whole’ does not begin as c. 23 begins, The Proverb certainly has &
connection, It is itself the link. Ie is quoted to support by
the argument that the Laver or Font can be only in the Church. de de.
quoted by Cyprian in the same connection in £f. 70. 1 and thence (like
50 many other texts) adopted by Firmilian. It is quoted again in the
same connection by Nemesian, Sen//, Epp. 5.
Again the end of 25 is no repetition of the first words of the above
extract, but a strong advance upon them.
¢. 25...*it is manifest that neither can we have baptism in common
with heretics with whom we have nothing at all in common, (That
is the point reached in 22 and he proceeds) And yet Stephen is
mot ashamed to afford to such his patronage against the Church,
and for the sake of maintaining the cause of heretics to cleave the
brotherhood asunder, and, over and above that, to say Cyprian is
a false Christ and false apostle and teacher and worker; and con-
scious that all these flaws are in hi
laying to another's charge what he shou!
of himself.”
1 Tbe strange (African?) additionto — ! Cant, iv. 12,
Prov. ix. 18 which appears in Ux, ὀδῚ must read suscipis with the early
and in Ap. 70. 1, in Senet. Epp. 5, correct Q. There is no v. 1. as to
in Aug. and in Ambrose, but not in — the other Presents.
the Vulgate,
VIL. 2. ACTS AND DOCUMENTS—FIRMILIAN. 385
"The objection to c. 24 (p. 133) that its expositions are built up out of
EPP. 7% 15} 74. 4 and 75. 20 would be of no weight if true. Firmilian's
open letter uses up for the purpose of reaffirming them most, if not all, of
the arguments contained in the two epistles which were submitted for his
confirmation. But it does not happen to be true except in mere verbal
‘coincidence, as to the first two passages, $f ecw METER
the apostolic definition of heresy. That of £f. 74. 4 is the handling of
Stephen's argument derived from the practice of heretics Neither of
these reappear in c. 2g. That of A. 73. 20 is that Stephen actually
misleads the poor heretic who would fain enter the Church by rightful
steps. This is repeated (not in c. 24, but) in e. 23 of AA 75.
Tt is asserted (Ritschl, p. 134) that c. 25 contradicts c. 6 as to the
course of Stephen’s action ; and as c. 6 is interesting in other particulars
it may be given so far in full.
€ 6 ‘That the Roman church docs not in all things observe the
primitive tradition, and alleges the authority of the Apostles to no
purpose, anybody may know from seeing that about the celebration of
Easter, and many other “sacraments” of religion, there exist with
them some diversities, and all things are not observed there in the same
way (@gwaliter gua) as they are observed at Jerusalem, just as in the
other numerous provinces too there are many things varied to suit local
and tribal differences (ocorum atgue homéinum), and yet on this account
the peace and unity of the Catholic Church have not at any time been
departed from. Stephen has now dared to do this, breaking (that) peace
with you which his predecessors have ever kept with you in love and
‘mutual honour."
The supposed contradiction to this is found in the opening of c. 25,
‘How diligently hath Stephen fulfilled these the Apostle's commands
‘and salutary monitions (those namely of Eph, iv.) keeping “lowliness
‘and meekness" in the first rank! For what is more “lowly and meek”
‘than to have differed with so many bishops throughout the whole
‘world, breaking the peace with each in various kind of discord, one
“while (modo) with Eastern bishops, of which (fact) we are confident that
“you too are aware, another while with yourselves who are in the south.’
€. 6 then, it is said, makes the breach with Africa the first, while
€. 25 places it later than the Eastern quarrel. c. 6 however touches no
question of time bat only says that the Africans are themselves a. living
instance of Stephen's quarrelsome pretensions; and c. 2§ does not say
that his Oriental quarrel preceded in point of time bis African quarrel,
But if Dionysius and Eusebius (Euscb. Z/. Z. vii. 5) satisfy the reader
that the Oriental difficulty was the earlier he will scarcely find his opinion
contradicted in 25, and in that case the error would be in Ritschl's
genuine chapter.
B. 35
386 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION,
"The linguistic objection, that the last word of the
equals:
to their bishops, or of the Church to Christ, absolutely
Adunatus and adunatio are waed by Cyprian of the unitedncas of bis -
‘own action with that of the Roman presbytery, ee
relation and union among themselves of the congregation’, of |
of God?, of the true people of Christ. Thrice in chapter 2,
chic bini calla evans, of a very epee i o used ja ΩΣ ἘΣ τς
sense, and ance even of the union of angels with the Church. Similar
is Cyprian's application of the word adwnatio to tbe mutual bond of
cburches?, and to the "many grains’ of the sacramental loaf*,
Lastly, it must be observed that the marks of translation from the
Greek are as rife in Ritschl's condemned chapters as in any others. —
Conclusion. "These then are the fruits of (what I believe to be)
thorough examination of the objections pushed against the enes
of Firmilian's epistle, The more general questions raised either prove
pointless or lead to further confirmations.
"The diction is manifestly that of a translation from Greek ; the style
rings with Cyprian ; the arguments are Cyprian's own, All fits precisely.
the conditions of a letter translated under Cyprian's hand or eye from.
the original of a Greek writer who had studied Cyprian's arguments.
‘The chapters which have been distinguished by a superfine acumen
as insertions either cannot be detached from the context without violence
τὸ the argument, or are provably not liable to the special charges made,
whether historically or linguistically ; and they have the same marked
character as the rest.
No literary document bears clearer stamp of authenticity and genuine-
mess than this interesting translation from such an author by such an
author.
Quotations of Seripture in Firmilian.
Another test may be applied. There are quoted in Ef. 75 (Fire
milian) some 21 | passages of Scripture. Twelve of these are also quoted
? , plebs adunata, De Dea. Oraf, 33. — * Bp. ὅτ 1
τος Δ Del..respondeant adunati, * Ej 69. 81 ef, Ef ὅσ. a
De del, et Liv. 8.
VIIL IL 2% ACTS AND DOCUMENTS—FIRMILIAN. 387
im Cyprian's writings. If the renderings of them in £j. 75 differed.
Spececiably in fms ae wordt Exin grin pete ME might doubt
whether the translation of the epistle was produced by Cyprian, under
Cyprian's direction, or in Africa at all. If on the other hand the render-
ings in £f. 75 corresponded to those given by Cyprian, this resemblance
would confirm the other indications of time, place and authorship. We
will examine all those citations in £f. 75 which recur in Cyprian.
A. ‘The following quotations appear in the Latin version of Fir-
inn’s letter in precisely /Ae same wording in which they occur in
Cyprian’s writings, not only (as two of them do) in the two letters which.
Firmilian had read, but in his other writings.
pod 9 M cosets ear Unit. 14, and Ep. 73 16.
Lc xi, 23 wo» Ef. 6 1 and Ef 70. 3.
Cant iv. 12,13», Kf 69. 2 and BA 74. 11.
Prov. ix. 18 w w Ef.70.1(Nemesian differently,
Sentt. Epp. 5).
Eph. iv, 1~6 (a long quotation).
τῆς. 5, 3 B S24 MP M AC ACIE
de Unit, 8,
aS tfe Unit. 4 (except that de Unit,
consolidates * sicut vocati es-
τὸς in una spe’ into *una spes *
as does Ciccilius, Seni. Epp.
a. It is not Ín fact à ‘read
dmg': our Common Prayer
Book does the same).
quoted by Nemesian, Sent,
Epp. $, except curantes.
B. In the following, the variations are such as might occur in
different 88. of the same version. The reader may observe that in
1 Cor. xi. 27 the Firmilian form is nearer to each of two differing forms.
than they are to each other: Gud. iii, 27, Ampwere for δαῤῥύκανε is common
both in Cyprian (eg. Epp. 73. $1 71. 15 75. 13 which last Ritschl thinks
genuine),—and therefore could not serve in 75. 12 as. Ritschl says, for a
disquise—and also in Tertullian. The two passages which differ sig-
nificantly are both from the Testimonia, which generally presents most
variety. Nemesian, Sent. Epp. 5, quotes two passages which Ef. 75
quotes and in both differs alike from it and from the version in
Cyprian,
25—2
VIIL 11. 2, BASIL AND THE LETTER OF FIRMILIAN. 380
Οἱ τοίνυν Πεπυρηνοὶ προδήλωτ εἰσὶν alpe-
Ld
tir γὰρ τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ d'ywr ἐβλασφήμην.
στάντες οὐκέτι ἔσχον τὴν χάριν τοῦ ἁγίον,
Vlreóparos ἐφ᾽ davrals* ὀπέλιτα γὰρ ᾧ
μετάδοσιν τῷ dacoriem τὴν ἀκολουθίων.
OL μὲν γὰρ πρῶτοι ἀγαχωρήσωνγει παρὰ
τῶν πατέρων ἔσχον τὰν χειροτονίας, καὶ
διὰ τῆν ἐπιθέσεων τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν εἶχον.
τὸ χάρισμα τὸ πνευματικόν᾽ οἱ δὲ ἀποῤῥα-
uU HM CUTEM HE
+ = nee patrem postunt habere
bere
‘quia nec spiritum sanctum, a quibue si
queramus quem Christum predicent,
espondebunt eum se predicare qui
"ierit spiritum per Montanum et
Priscam locutum. .- Sed et ceteri qui:
que heretici, si se ab ecclesia Dei selde-
rint, aihil habere potestatis out gratie
possunt quando omnis potesta et gratia
in ecclesia constituta sit, ubi president.
‘majores matu qui et baptizandi et
manum imponendi et omdinandi pos-
sideot potestatem, horreticum enim sicut
ordinare non licet nec manum [m-
ponere, ita nec baptizare nec quicquam.
sancte et spiritaliter gerere, quod.
totum nos jam pridem in Iconio, , .col-
βαπτίαματι τῷ τῆς ᾿Βκελησίαε ἀνακαθαί. — 8 δ. s « - nisl eos prius etiam ecclesise
erba. baptismo baptisnsset,
The correspondences are the more striking because they are so little
verbal There is the constructive heresy of the Montanists; there are
the two classes of heretics and schismatics; the loss of the power of
imparting the Holy Spirit through the loss of the Apostolic Succession ;
there is the reference in Basil to some carlier canon, in Firmilian 10
his contemporary Council of Iconium ; and there is the marked phrase
‘The Baptism of the Church! And all these topics are in the same
order.
A. Harnack, Gesck. εἶ alt-Chr. Littenstur bit Euseb. V. p. 409 refers
to this passage, but does not notice the parallelism. It has been men-
tioned above (p. 375) that in de Spiritw Saneto xxix. 29. 74 Basil appeals to
Firmilian's doctrine as a standard. The words omitted at the asterisk *
couple Cyprian and ‘our Firmilian" together as antient authorities who
required the baptism of schismatics equally with heretics. Πλὴν ἄλλ᾽
Tile τῶ pn οἷς rea euer MTS sm fette kw
τούτους πάντας μιᾷ ψήφῳ ὑποβαλεῖν, Ka@apove..
THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
The Nameless Author ‘ON REBAPTISM,
5
The interest centering on the champion of the winning
yet lost cause must not make us forget that so far he alone
has registered what of record there is against himself. ΤῈ
must be facts a champion could not record. His councils
cannot have been so unlike all others as not to ha:
scenes of controversy ; his signataries not the only
who had opinions; his bishops not more docile tham his
presbyters’, He regrets himself that not all, though so many,
were with him. In his last Council he seems to absolve some
dioceses from compliance, In his opinion worldliness
accounted for the disuse of Agrippinus’ rebaptismal statute;
but we are well able to see that that effect was at least
also producible by thought, by charity, by comprehension of
Apostolic principle; and if a contemporary of this stamp,
one who differed ‘by a whole sky’ from Cyprian, not tradition-
ally or overbearingly but philosophically, should have sur
vived, how valuable might be his separate illustration of the
Christian reason and spirit in that age.
Such a writer, I entertain no doubt, exists for us in ' THE
AUTHOR ON REBAPTISM."
His pamphlet was found and copied by the Pére Jacques Sirmond
from a ‘very antient manuscript’ of Cyprian in the library of S. Remi
at Rheims,—where it exists no more. It there followed Cyprian's
letter to Pompeius? and was subscribed Cacilit Cypriani fintvit de
vebaptismate, Rigaut first printed it in 1648 seeing its value, and
from its diction concluding it to be a5 eva Cypriantco farum dit
dans. Then Labbe in 1672 in the Concilia, vol. 1., and, after making
ἃ new collation, Baluze. Hartel has no other materials to edit from
(Praef. p. lxi).
2 Eg. 71. 1 Murimi coepiscopi..qui- — catores veritati Compare "
dum. 6g. to intus in ipsa ecclesia.’ — plurimos" and qaidam in Ap. 63. x nad
τῷ. 56 "collegis et coepiscopis. Sai, — de Mort. 1 ‘etsi aput plurimos.. tamen...
Bp. 80. 'quidame de cellqir nostris. :
Sent, Epp. 38 "quidam nostri pravvari-
VIL 2, ACTS, ETC—THE NAMELESS AUTHOR. 301
Labbe says (Synopsis Come. Apparat. tom. T. p. 83) a MS. of it in
the Vatican αἱ attributes it to *Ursinus the Monk an African,’ and so
names it. Pearson accepts this. Baluze also, because the interval be-
tween its writing and the Apostles is called (c. vi.) tot sieculorm tanta
series, ἃ phrase inapplicable in the age of Cyprian. Qudin (gut fowr-
mille d'erreurs, #3 Tillemont says), besides Routh (Rell. Sae. vol. V.
p. 283), who quotes Labbe as saying Tiree manuscripts, accept
Ursinus. Such names claim an otherwise superfluous answer, What
we know of Ursinus is from Gennadius, presbyter of Marseilles (o4.
AD. 496), in his continuation of Jerome, De Viris Jllwstribus, c. 37.
"Ursinus (Ursicinus Sérmond) Monachus scripsit adversus eos qui
*rebaptizandos haereticos decernunt, docens nec legitimum esse nec.
*Deo dignum rebaptizari illos qui in nomine simpliciter Christi, vel
‘in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti quamvis pravo sensu
“baptizantur: sed post Trinitatis et Christi simplicem
* sufficere ad salutem manus impositionem catholici sacerdotis Tt
is hard to see how this can have been taken for an account of our
author. He is plainly not a monk but a bishop. ‘The words /gi-
imum and Deo dignum point to express reasonings turning on (1)
authority, (2) analogy, which are net touched in this book: nor yet
the distinction of baptisms in the name of Christ and of the Trinity,
nor the possibility of the latter being validly bestowed although firavo
ens, which is an intelligible groond dealt with by Cyprian (ZA.
23. S). Neither is a preliminary confession insisted on. Again,
would * Catholicus Sacerdos? have been used in this abstract unless
it were in the treatise described? our author always speaks of
Episcopi.
Cave (H. Δ. 1. p. 131) suggests that the Vatican subscription is due
to some reader of Gennadius, and Tillemont that it would be well to
ascertain that the Ms. is one of this treatise, I do not know whence
comes Caves account of Ursinus as ‘gente Afer! except from the
subscription, or his date 440 A.D, but at any rate Ursinus must
have written (from Gennadius statement) at a much later period of
the controversy, and probably in its Donatist stage.
As to Baluze’s remark on the ‘tot saeculorum tanta series’ indi«
cating a later date, the phrase is not of course more literally accurate
in 440 than in 250. it belongs to their general leaning to large
numbers: the expectation of the end of the world had something
to do with making the Christian past seem long; but apart from
that, this very treatise calls the few years of Peter and Paul's mutual
knowledge ‘tanta tempora'; Cyprian speaks of ‘tot haereticorum
‘milia' having entered the African church by rebaptism (Ef. 73. 3);
SECO v. €, $, Speaks of John as baptizing *infinita milia homi-
Prio ver abend πες pal on
THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
Tillemont (in kis clever discussion vol. wv. note, see:
xxxix.) Du Pin, Maran, Galland, Nesnder, :
As literary tokens of his antiquity we may E
genuine reading of S. John vii. 39 (The) Holy Ghost zuas no?
before Christ's exaltation, No Latin father reads this un-
corrupted. Again, "The Holy Ghost,’ he says, ‘came down...
not of His own will,’ a paraphrase, which heresy early rem-
dered impossible, of *...He will not come unto you,..I will
send Him unto you,’ combined perhaps with 'He shall not
speak from Himself"...."
From a doctrina! point the higher value set upon the
Imposition of Hands than on the Baptism itself is a mark
of carly and not far from Tertullianesque age*. Again, the
familiar use of ‘Baptism in the name of Christ’ as equivalent
to perfect baptism would have been impossible when the dis-
tinction had once ‘been thought out between that form EU
used the terms as : equivalent after €
with Stephanus was known. -
jim er
VIIL it, 2. ACTS, ETC—THE NAMELESS AUTHOR. 393
There is a yet nicer indication. We shall presently see
that the Author's theory of the visible Church was in itself
adequate to solve Cyprian's difficulty, Yet the Author has
no more than an instinctive sense of its truth and of its
applicability. He does not drive it home. This is a phe-
nomenon which can only occur in contemporary arguments.
Two theories exist side by side; in the next generation one
of them will have yielded. At first the discoverer of the
true one has rarely learnt its full speculative value; he
applies it merely as a test to points of practice
Again, the Author does not meet the great doctrine of
‘Unity’ on which every argument of Cyprian’s is based.
When once a theory has passed out of the essay-stage, in
which others as yet compete with it; when once it has pos-
session of the field, no eye can stir without sccing it. No onc
could have written on Cyprian's subject even a few years later
without knowing of this key to his whole position, The
absence of any allusion to the doctrine of Unity assigns the
Treatise on. Rebaptism to the first years of the controversy.
How could it have been excluded ever so little later when
the forms in which it was cast and the Scriptura! symbols in
which it was expressed were 50 taking, so popular, so numerous,
and so assailable! ?
Acute in disputation? and fresh in language he writes as
one who hopes still to influence the controversy”, He is one
"Tt must be remembered that they and not imperfect only but erroneous,
occur in the * Unity’ as emphatically as at the very time when they were not
in his Letters.
? As an instance of his ability and
Maire to look at faets as they are,
mote how, anticipating *your usual’
answer (which Cyprian does use in
‘the case of the Samaritans, Ze. 75+ 9)
works out how their Messianic beliefs
were then Judaic as to cardinal points,
394 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
of the bishops, To him Cyprian's proposal is
new question, an attempt to alter, to reform very
usage of the churches, a step to Novatianism* He
Italian. No Italian could have avoided as he does.
to Roman tradition and the Roman pope. His.
African’. His adversaries are not heretics like the Donatists;
they are churchmen and bishops, There is no other
possible for him, unless it can be shewn that there was some
other at which there raged a second tempest like ours within
the Latin-speaking church, yet one in which there was no re=
currence to cither the arguments or the refutations of Cyprian,
It would indeed be necessary to create a second a
For no one else can be represented in the unkind sketch.
which the Author gives of his antagonist, as he sees him.
abetted by his bishops in imputing their own faulty in-
ventions irreverently to the Church their mother, To set
against all the heart-burnings and separations that will arise,
the sole fruit of the new question is, he says‘, the exaltation
‘of one single person, whoever that is, so that he may
‘be vaingloriously proclaimed among the thoughtless as a
‘man of great insight and consistency; and that, whilst
19 he calls the controversy priesenttem
attercationem.
* He contrasts baptism administered
tper πρὶ" and confirmation following
immediately, with baptism adminis-
tered ‘a minore clero. fer. necessitatem?
δ. το.
? Super hac nova quastione c. 1.
Nunc primum repente ac sine ratione
insurgere c. 6, H'aereticorum... c. t.
? A few of these idioms moy be
quoted. — Datives ali
fe. 1) 1 pras
(e. 9); flumina de ventre ej
rebunt (c. r4), this (African)
is demanded by the sense and the
citation though Routh and Hartel
have ‘currebant' ; existimarent ut, .per«
severet (c. 9), thind that he wenld con-
tinue (cf, Optat ii. e. 4 expectantes
‘ut venirent, iii. e. 8 dicebatur ut nega-
tetur. Christus, ἐγ was ordered that he
should be denied). As peculiarities of
i. 16 (not noted by Hartel);
cit tibi (c. 9), Mt. xvi 295
neque novi te (6. 9), Mt. xxvi, 76.
tentiam sel in Spiritu Sancto."
(P Auct e. τ.
ΨΠΠ. 1.2, ACTS, ETC.—THE NAMELESS AUTIOR. 395
“enjoying the admiration of heretics!, whose solitary comfort
‘in perdition is to be seen sinning in company, he may be
“extolled among his copyists and compeers, for having set
‘tight the errors and defects of all the churches This pursuit
of logical issues, this tendency to Puritanism, lust of vc-
modelling, extended ambition are contemporary accusations,
not so acrimonious as those of Puppian?, but as surely aimed
at Cyprian. The charge of imitating Novatian is exactly
what angers Cyprian into the retort that ‘Novatian is the
Ape of the Church,’ and that the way to harden heretics is
to patronise and imitate them* The Author's sneer that
*want of humanity’ is what makes his opponent undervalue
custom is familiar’, In the frequent interchange of singular
and plural addresses we sce the large party, and the leader
who is himself the party. Cyprian’s use of a favourite
text is sharply touched, ‘Whereto perhaps you, with your
‘novelty, may forthwith impatiently answer, as you are wont,
“that the Lord said, Except a man be born again, &c'"
Even the exquisite writing does not escape. ‘How; he asks
sarcastically, "must the line of disqualification be drawn?
* Why should it be drawn at heresy, more than at immorality?
‘and then why not at erroneous views—at virtual heresy?
‘at want of skill in imparting these rudiments? You must
‘at last come to cnforcing your 'dewuo' baptism if the
*eatechising bishop has been imperfect in expression—not
‘so ornate and precise as you are".
Finding ourselves then so close to Cyprian in this treatise,
* Hueretcorum stupore prieditus, — Nemewlan, δεινός, App. 5, Auctor c. 2
Auet. αν * sed non tam omate nt τὰ et eom-
3 Ep. 66. posite, isti quoque slmpliciores homincs.
? Cyp. Ap. 7}. 3 'simiarum more'; 3 — mysterium. fidei tradant, Dieturas ex
‘not non demus stuporem haereticis pa- ὀ enim uliqne fre fa séupulari diligenticr
trocinii et consensus nostri... hos quoque denuo baptimmdos exe,
* Auct. 16. Auct c. 1 Tt appesn to me as cor
4 Quoted four times in Cyprisn’s tain thar Cyprian ἔν here meant as that
Epletles, but of course the remark it can never have boen written after his
cannot be limited to them only. Also martyrdom,
306 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION, ie
it is natural to ask, Was the Author acquainted with Cyprian's-
full writings on the subject? or Had Cyprian himself read
the Author? The questions seem capable of answer, And
as answers are deducible from facts lying aside of that main
stream of the Argument on which we have not yet embarked,
we may intelligibly complete our review of the Book as a
document by producing them here,
(t) Did then the Author know Cyprian's later writings
on the subject ?
There is scarcely a semblance of this. He no-
where attacks his very assailable typology. For example
Cyprian asks,‘ If heretic baptism be so safe, why any church
‘reception? If that baptism is a reality, heretics may be
‘holy martyrs! And the Author meets these questions;
but it is simply as floating arguments without any appear-
ance of setting treatise against treatise. He was ac-
quainted with Cyprian's line of action, with his treatment of
the ordinary texts, and with certain pamphlets on both sides",
But he does not fasten on Cyprian’s specialities as we know
them, His treatise must therefore come quite early in the
movement? of his day.
But another strong personality, besides Cyprian's, seems
to be before him, when, analysing Christ's prediction of
‘false prophets with miraculous powers, the Author speaks
of ‘certain powers, and of ' the false prophesying"/—the term
for Montanism—in his own day, and then goes on 'but
‘certain it is that, because they are not Christ's, they have
‘nothing to do with Christ : just as if any one draw away from
‘Christ, cleaving only to the Name of Him, he is not much
‘helped thereby, nay rather is actually borne down by this
* Name ; although he were defore time most strong in the faith,
"1 “πὰρ τα ίραη ns 'echtrup,
p. 207, m. 2, sees: that de Rebapt, 13 aliquo honoratus. Auctor 13.
VII1. 1,2. ACTS, ETC.—THE NAMELESS AUTHOR. 307
*or most upright, or held some rank among the clergy, or had
‘attained the dignity of confessorship" Can there be much
question as to who was the original of this sketch? And if it
is Tertullian the carly date is still more distinct.
Our impression of the Author's place in the controversy
ig supported by what appears to be the answer to the next
question :—
(2) Had Cyprian read the Author?
When the Author proposes with the air of a new dilemma
'What place can you consistently give to the unbaptized
confessor?" and when Cyprian describes this exact question
as* the human argumentation of certain persons, his reference
seems to be distinct and express.
When Cyprian says that the apostolic motto ‘unum
baptisma must not be construed as a rubrical direction but
is a declaration of the oncness of the Christian bond, he seems
to assail some such interpretation as the Author adopts,
that ‘to repeat baptism was contrary to a decree of the
Apostles.” Stephen himself had not gone beyond saying
‘what we have received from the Apostles, meaning by
tradition",
Again, the specialness of Cyprian's warning against the
idea that heretics will be kept away by the required repetition,
whereas they will rather be attracted, has the appearance of
ἃ reply to some such representation as that in which the
Author paints the responsibility of a church which would by
+ Auctor 14 * Quid auem statues
statim confessa: ac frinojmim daptisari
aua permitteretur ei faerit panitus, &c.
νυ γαῖα Dominus. . eum. uf fvlliciéur ext
exornet,..martrrium autem nonnisi in
ipssm Dominum posit com
sumevari! Compare Jip. 73-31...
dam quasi «vacare possint humana
argumentatione predicationis evange-
salutis. amittat δὸ quod ex agua priv
non sit renatus... Sanguine nutem suo...
commesmsari εἰ divime. pellicitationts
gratiam consequi. dechsrat... Dominus."
The resemblance is verbal as well a9
mental.
* Kp 2) 13. Auctor 10.
—
she holds material baptism to be essential.
If then these are fair indications that pube
Author's work, can it perhaps be the actual epistle which —
Jubaian enclosed to Cyprian? There is a singular touc
here Cyprian, scouting the idea that one baptized |
the Church need not be baptized into it, as baptized a
in Christ's name, says to Jubaian that he will not pass o
* ‘a mention of Marcion" which he observes in that enclosure*.
*Marcion does not hold the same Trinity we hold, the same
'Creator-Father, the same Son in true flesh, and
‘Marcion’s baptism is not in the true Christ's name’!
this is precisely the ground which the Author takes
denying to the (Marcionite) heretic the possibility of martyr
dom. ‘It is an empty appearance of martyrdom, when
‘man believes in a different God, a different Christ; not
‘omnipotent Creator of Scripture nor the Son of Him*" This
seems to be the ‘mention of Marcion' which Cyprian takes
up. To the Author's acceptance of heretical baptism he
simply opposes his rejection of Marcionite martyrdom,
If it be thought that, supposing this to have been Jubaian's
enclosure, Cyprian would not have passed silently over its
main issue,—namely, that while Baptism proper is a ' Water-
Baptism,’ like that of John, accompanied by Invocation which
has a certain power, ‘ Spirit-Baptism' accompanies the Lay-
ing on of hands,—the answer is simple. It is because this
theory in no way entered into the controversy with Rome.
1 Bp. 18. 24 compared with Auctor
10, Not to accumulate passages, we
may add Auct 2, John "deweiscene
a lege jd. ent. Αἰργεὶ antiquissime dap-
imate’ compared with Ej. 73« 175
the Jews "agir et Moysi antiquissi-
mum baptisma fuerant adepti. And
one very interesting instance is the com-
parison of Auctor c. 6 where he is ap-
parently correcting an extreme opinion
‘on his own side as to the naked solitary
invocation of Jesus’ Name sufficing for
salvation with Firmilian, Ag. 7§- 9,
who calls the invocation of the name
of God or of Christ alone a "mem
dacius ^
5 So Dr Peters, pp. δ1 7 q3-
* Ep. 75: 4:
* Ep. 13. 5:
Δ Auct, 1.
VILL nt. THE ARGUMENTS. 399
The view is as remote from Stephen's as it is from Cyprian's
opinions.
The Treatise then scems to yield these interesting facts
about itself; that Cyprian was acquainted with it; that its
Author, while certainly acquainted with Cyprian's action and
view, was not acquainted with his later or more elaborate
writings on the controversy; that consequently he handled
it in its early stage; that it was not improbably the treatise
which Jubaian submitted to Cyprian.
Its interest lies not in Cyprian's being careful to answer it.
It is a fresh specimen of the life in which he lived. Its argu-
ments although they lic aside of the thread of the controversy
yet are produced in defence of the prevailing practice. In its
way it helped to widen the bond of Christendom at a time
when the greatest Christian man living was for contraction.
Its interpretation of isolated texts was such as no modern could
employ or be affected by. The forced subtle exegesis evolved
by an acute mind whilst intent on the letter is in contrast
with the large anti-superstitious view which the same mind,
rich with Evangelic teaching, took of the most sacred rite.
His letter perished, his spirit prevailed. The frequency with
which this phenomenon repeats itself in Theology is a great
witness that there truly abides in Theology a living spirit,
from age to age using, and then dropping, that ‘letter’ which
to the eyes of subsequent generations may seem to have been
all of which their fathers were capable.
INL, The Arguments.
We may open our review of the Arguments with a fuller
statement of that which, at the time when Cyprian began
to give his support to the revival of the old discipline
of Agrippinus by requiring a Second Baptism, defended
the prevailing practice of receiving returned schismatics by
400 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
imposition of hands. The Author on Rebaptism, though his
particular arguments faded, yet contributed to maintain opinion
on the side which finally prevailed. The theory he alleged
may have been too subtle to be of popular service at any
time, too fanciful to have captivated the solid reason of the
Church for any period, and yet in fragments, in scattered
lights, by side-strokes, such theories do substantial work, In
one sense nothing really dies of which the spirit has entered
into the life of the Church, however she may have | he
the stage at which the form was accepted.
This is the line of reasoning by which the AEDEM
tained the satus quo :—
‘I. The preaching of John distinguished two baptisms,
the one of Spirit, the other of Water. These two are separ
able. When separated they are still integral; not unmeaning
fragments! — The essence of Water-Baptism is the Invocation
of the Name of Christ; even after the gift of the Spirit, that
Invocation is a Power; prior to it, a Beginning which in due
time may be completed’, It has a virtue’ which intellectual
error cannot destroy; which may revive after dormancy ; to
which mistaken doctrines cannot in its ministrants be worse
hindrances than immoral lives. It remains ineffective until
the Imposition of Hands gives the Baptism of the Spirit;
although for such as never attain this it must be completed
by the Divine Goodness. The Baptism of Blood, again, can-
not be less salutary than that of water, although to the heretic
it is nothing, because he suffers not in Christ, but only under
Christ's Name*
IL Invocation then, or Water-Baptism, must in order to
become effective be completed for the heretically baptized by
the Spirit-Baptism of the Laying on of Hands’,
? Auctor cc. 5, ustrations 17 "Those Gentiles on whom Christ's
from Seripture and from di nas been invohed...have still τὸ
cc. 6, 7: "cre. "seek the Loni.” ‘The case of the
ὁ Auctor €. 18. heretically baptized i here eontem-
* Thus he developes Acts xv. 13— — plated! c, 12,
VIIL HL THE ARGUMENTS—CVPRIAN'S 1. OBJECTIVE. 401
III. Both the species of Baptism were represented on the
Cross in their Unity, but fo baptisms of one species would
be unendurable*,
IV. There are then three Baptisms—of Water, of Blood,
of the Spirit; and these three are recognized by S. John".
And the Holy Spirit willingly imparts Himself even to
the unworthy for certain ends. We should therefore trust
Him so to do, adhering to the true rite; and not doing
violence by a second Baptism either to the Invocation of
Christ or to venerable custom*/—Such is his thesis*,
In examining the views of Cyprian, we have to avoid
making him responsible for the arguments of his partisans,
whose handling in the Seventh Council is at times very
discrepant from that of his letters. Firmilian, on the other
hand, is à fair representative and sensible summariscr.
Cyprian's arguments are of remarkable range and fulness.
He ignores but one aspect of the question. And that one is
capital.
The objective entity of the Church, the objective presence
of the sanctifying Spirit, the subjectivity of the baptizer and
of the baptized are discussed; historic evidence, biblical
declarations, casuistic difficulties are tested.
His objective grounds may be arranged thus :—
(1) The unity of the Church demands (re)-Baptism. The
question with him broadened at once, as we have seen, from
the consideration of schism to the consideration of heresy. In
the critical point these were identical. The demarcation of
? Auctor c. t4. invalidate the rte and make it deadly.
Fa Jo. v. 6-8.
Fea
«The exception which follows is in-
teeesting in illustration of what some
sects were. "Tbe conjuring fire’ which
is shewn upon the water at Simonian
Baptism is an imposture sufficient to
B
402 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION. A
Church from non-Church was distinet’, The representation of
sacred acts outside the Church was no equivalent for the.
reality of sacred acts within it. The inviolate oneness had no
outlying dependencies, Although the schismatic* might own.
“One Lord’ and claim ‘One Faith,’ yet the ‘One Baptism "
was not his, for the One Baptism implied the One Church,
which he renounced,
(2) He could not however claim even Unity of Belief, “One
Faith, whilst the Apostles’ creed stood in its African form.
“Dost thou believe the Forgiveness of Sins and the Life
Everlasting through Holy Church ?' was on his lips null in
the very hour of baptism’.
(3) The remissory virtue of the rite in respect of sin
shewed it to be a function of the Holy Orders which had no
being outside the Church* So that from the ecclesiastical
side it might be said that the whole episcopal authority as the
bond of unity, and the whole dignity of the Divine economy
and organisation were involved in the question whether the
baptism of heretics was to be recognised’, If it were, then
the Church had many centres, and rested not upon one Foun-
dation-rock but upon several! And if that baptism were
recognised, untruly and untruthfully, then the unforgiven sins
of these strangers must be shared by those who received them"
into a communion which behind the earthly scene knew them
not.
? Ep. 69. 3. © Bp 75.176
* Ef. 75. V4, 15, 34, 38. T ER 13: 19 '..5e alienis immo.
3 Ep. 69. 75 Ep. qo 2 sternis peccatis communicare,"
* Ej 18. po view. he mind tine properly observes that Vietor of
though! dee e
of his.
VIIL fL THE ARGUMENTS—CYPRIAN'S t, OBJECTIVE. 403
"The scparatist teacher has surrendered’ the animating,
unifying Spirit, and no personal earnestness of his own could
convey that Spirit to his followers by baptizing them*. He
illustrates his principle by the ingenious remark that in order
to the exercise of this function John Baptist received the Holy
Ghost in his mother's womb?; but since John did not impart
the Holy Ghost to his baptized crowds, he has to limit the
application to his baptism of our Lord ; and similarly he says
that the Apostles received the Spirit by the breathing of
Christ, that they might be enabled to baptize and give remis-
ston of sins.
(4) The admission of reconciled separatists to the Church
by imparting to them the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands,
which is the usage of even those who recognised their baptism,
was a practical declaration that they had not received, but still
needed to receive, that Holy Ghost. For the usage can never
be defended from the Apostles laying their hands on the bap-
tized Samaritans, since that was a confirming of work initiated
by their own Deacon‘, But if the schismatic admittedly had
not as yet received the Holy Ghost, how should he sanctify
the very water for baptism? or the unction of confirmation’,
+ _amiserit Spiritum Sanctum, Aj.
yoo
? Ep. 69. ri. ‘Qui non habet quo-
modo dat?" beeame a catchword of the
Donatists, The reply of the Cutholies
was ‘Deum ewe datorem: sce Op-
tats, who solves the question with
mundus est et apud quem sanctus spiritus.
non est 2... ungi quoque Heoese ext cum
qmi baptizatus ex. ut accepto chrismate,
id et unctione, ere umzfus Det et habere
» Ep 65: V1 διμαδλεν esset...im utero.
matris constitame’ Cf. Lue. i. 1g tre de
κοιλίαν Jo. xx. 4135.
+ Bp. τῆν 9, in connection with £j.
ir Oportet mundori εἰ sanctificari
aquam prius ἃ sacerdote ut posit bap-
‘smo suo peccata hominis qui baptizatur
abluere... autem mundare et
sanctifieare aquam potest qui ipse im-
clesiam, Ap. 70. 1, 2. Cf. Sedatus, ὅσω,
App. 18 “in quintum aqua nwendir
proce im. Ecclesia sametifienta abluit de-
licta, in tantum haretico sereows volut.
cancer infects eumalat peceata.! In
‘Tertullian (4e Alege, 7) the oe
gives the Christian his
Ang. de Ci. Dei xx, το, nar. 1. of
in Ps. xevi., Amarr, in Ps. xliv, 19, and
26—2
404
which is the sign of the Royalty and Priesthood of every
Christian man? Above all, how should he give the New.
Birth’, which as the essence of the sacrament is.
act of the Spirit ?
(s) Wor yet could their Beption be reparricd et ree
Sacrament, begun without the Spirit, but completed in Him*.
The washing of water withows the Spirit is a mere carnal
Fudaizing’ rite. Nay, applied as a deceiving semblance, it
must be worse. It is a material pollution’, Under sentence,
and void of metit, the pretenders can neither ‘justify nor
sanctify’ their baptized’. Who but the holy can hallow"?
Who but the living give life’?
THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION. =
Jerome, Comm, in Joe i. 38 sar
making it confer our Kingship snd
Priesthood, see Dr A... Mason, Relation
of Confirmation ἐν Baptism, 1893. pp»
87, 171. And popularly Prudentius,
y v. 36r, "unguentum re
Prychomachia,
gale? See Bunsen: ‘to the (catechue
men's) vow for life and death corre-
sponded the unetion as Priest and
King... The seal of a free pledge, of a
responsible act,’ Mippolytus amd dir
age, vol in pp. 120, 1 (1844), Ob-
serve however that in the Agostolic Con-
atítutiony, ble. vil. c- a3, It is said that if
there is no oil for the anointing before
the baptism, nor chris. (μόραν) for the
subsequent anointing, water suffices
for both ; ἀρκεῖ ὕδωρ καὶ πρὸς xplew καὶ
mph σφραγίδα. It in with Water that
the English Church seals the baptized
with the Signaculam Crueis, although
the Royal Priesthood of the Laity would
be more plainly expressed and taught
saust include this among τὰ λουτὰ ὧν
tion by Comel. £j. ad Fab, Euseb.
T. E. vie 43 didt were true the
srgunent of Cypr elt RN Bn
^ r Te n6
? BP 14. 5.
Ὁ Kp. 5. 13, Cf. Tert. de Bay, 1.
* Profane aqux labes, £P 73 £j
adultera et profana aqua, £f. 74.1, 65.21;
profana aqua polluuntur. Z4. 69. 16, In
words this becomes more revolting. in.
the Vote of Sedatus (Scutr. Egg. 18,
above p. 403, note 8), but the sense is
nowhere stronger than in Cyprian's
earliest declaration on the subject
‘men are not cleansed in that baptism.
but rather are defiled; nor are their
sins purged aay κα idend ae bengal
Omit, 4
higher! 4
ancl for ara
to consecrate than technically Co sametifre
effect of it is to make a man =
eof God. Αρ. 75. ta
"fei
VHI 10, THE ARGUMENTS—CYPRIAN'S 2. SUBJECTIVE. 405
(6) Is it maintained that for an carmest though misin-
formed convert the Presence and Sanctity of Christ Himself
countervail the unworthiness of the ministrant? Then, if
Christ be there, how should His Spirit be wanting? And if
the Spirit be absent, as our Imposition of Hands affirms, how
can we affirm that Christ is present’?
We have thus approached the .jecfive basis of the
Cyprianic argument.
(1) If Faith of the Recipient" is urged as the ground of the
blessing, a mere faith in his own faith cannot be adequate.
To be effective a faith must be a true faith. But while the
faith of the schismatic is deficient in a cardinal point, namely,
the remission of sins through the Church, the faith of the
heretic is false and often blasphemous".
(2) But must not the /mvocation of God in the Lord's own
words be effective? There seem to have been in Africa some
who understood baptism ‘in the Name of Christ’ to be
sufficient without the Trinal Invocation. This was evidently
very rare, if ever it was more than an exception, Augustine*
says that although still in his day many honest clergy prayed
ignorantly, and many erroneously, through their having pos-
sessed themselves unwittingly of copies of heretical devotions,
yet that it would probably be easier to find some non-
baptizing sect, than people baptizing with a mutilated
formula.
Stephen bestows no consideration, still less any approval,
upon such a form. When he defends baptism ‘in the Name
of Christ’ he is using the words in a Scriptural sense, of
persons who at least intended to be baptized into the Faith of
Christ. He assumes the ordinary correctness of baptisms in
such respects, Cyprian it is true argues against the validity
of some’ kind of baptizing ‘in the Name of Christ? but only
PX * Auge de Pap, e. Donait, v. yv.
2 BPP TS 4} 74:9.
! BIER S SET 3 Bj gy ite
406 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
just as he argues against the validity of some baptizing in the
Name of the Trinity, namely because another Christ and
another Trinity are understood by the baptizers.
Baptism in the Name of Christ alone.
It is necessary to look into this question with some care on account
of A. Neander's bold assertion (General Hist. of the Christian Religion
and Church, sect. ili, vol. t. pp. 446, 7, and notes, Bohn) that from
Cyprian's letters and from the (contemporary) book De Rebaptirmate it
is undeniably clear that the omn party maintained, ‘in a more liberal
Christian spirit’ than his, the objective validity of baptizing In Christ's
name alone, without the Invocation of the Holy Trinity.
It is in the first place unfair to attribute to Rome the views of the
Author on Re-baptism who is certainly an African. But there is no sign
of his having held such a view.
1. What the Author on Rebaptism says is (c. 7) that, while the
Trinal Invocation was not only verume ef recfum et omnihus odit in
ecclesia observandum but was observari quoque solitum, ‘we should con-
‘sider that Invocation of the Name of Jesus ought not to be looked on
‘by us as futile’ (a nobis futitis videri): ‘it might have a sort of initial
virtue capable of subsequent completion? debet invocatio hiec nominis
Jesu quasi initium quoddam mysterii. Dominici commune nobis e ceteris
omnibus accipi, quod fossit postmodum residuis rebus inpleri.—Hee does
not say what the residi rer are, but since the ‘Name of Jesus? is the
only thing as yet ‘common’ to the Church and these persons, the reridwe
of the Invocation, the communion of the Father and the Spirit, cannot
be excluded from them.
In the title and first chapter of the book the expression "semel in.
nomine Domini Jesu Chritté tincti” is equivalent to * Christian baptism,’
and does not mean one class of baptisms only, for it comprehends those
who already were baptized in the name of the Trinity.
2. What the*Roman party’ maintained can be gathered from the
arguments against them, but especially from certain clauses imbedded in
those which are recognisable as fragmentary quotations from Stephen.
Such passages are these. Stephen, Ep. 73. 16, is represented as
τ cujuscumque et « rn gentilem baptizatum remissionem pec-
* catorum consequi posse’: which is a version of the same citation, * rwjte-
‘being Cyprian’s paraphrase of Stephen's own word
ubicumque, and meaning ‘whatever doctrine of the Person of Christ be
VIIL πὶ, THE ARGUMENTS—CYPRIAN'S 2. SUBJECTIVE. 407
entertained by the sect.’ The same passage Firmilian-Cyprian (Ef. 75.
18) quotes thus: ‘sed ín multum" inquit * proficit nomen Christi ad fidem
‘et baptismi sanctificationem, αἱ quicumque et ubicumque in nomine
'Christi baptizatus fuerit consequatur statim gratiam Christi’ And
again the same passage is quoted EA. 74. $ ‘qui in nomine Jesu Christi
ubicumque et quomodocumque baptizantur,’ Now this one harped-on
quotation (for it is only one) would have carried Neander's sense, had
the question been one of compuriny the value of two forms. But there is
nosuch question stirring. ‘The question is whether a schigmatic Aerzon can
baptize, al else being equal, Stephen uses ‘baptized ἐμ the Name of
Christ’ in the New Testament sense ax equivalent to Christian baptism
—as Origen explains Rom. vi. 3, ‘baptized into Chris! by reference
to the context τὸ mean ordinary Christian baptism, ‘cum utique non
habeatur legitimum baptisma nisi sub noméne Trinitati And that it
was only in this form that Stephen considered the ‘Name of Christ” to
be applied in baptism is plain from Firmilian's other quotation from him,
Ej. 75. 9 ‘non querendam esse quis sit ille qui baptizaverit eo quod qui
*baptizatus sit gratiam consequi potnerit invocata Trinitate nominum
* Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Firmilian indeed expressly assumes,
Ef. 75. νὰ, that Stephen would require the symolum Trinétatis, even
though his principles would (as he supposes) allow, if it were correct in
that point and in the interrogations, a baptism by a demoniac or a
demon.
Looking then even to the letter of what Stephen wrote (though so
lite remains to us), Neander’s account of it is not justified. If we
consider how strong Cyprian (Ap. 73. 18) was on this point,—/pse
Christus jubel baptizari gentes in plena ef adunate Trinitate, following.
his Master who says Ler fímpwendi imposita est ef forma fraseripla
(Tert. de Bafé. 13)—we shall see that had he conceived ‘Baptism in
Christ's Name’ to imply the disregard of Christ's ‘form,’ he would have
been armed with an argument against Stephen which he could not have
failed to use. We shall also observe, with Tillemont (Tom, IY., Note 39
τῶν S, Cypricn), that neither Eusebius, Augustine, Vincent of Lerins or
Facundus ever perceived in Stephen such false ‘liberality’ as Neander
would fain discover in him.
In this view of Stephen, Fechtrup agrees, pp. 221—224. Tillemont,
attaching impossible force to the title of the pamphlet, thinks the Author's
position was that which Neander takes, On the ground of the passage
of Augustine, quoted in the text, it has been doubted whether all the
sects named by Gennadius (de Acclesiast. dogmat. cap. lii) really did
disuse the form.
While therefore Cyprian regards this Form of Christ's
! Origen, Commcn?, in Zpist, ad Am, lib. v. e. 8.
408 THE BAFTISMAL QUESTION.
Institution ‘in the full and united Trinity’ to be essential’,
he appeals beyond this to common reason to decide whether
one can be érudy baptized into the Son, who denies the truth
of the Son's humanity, or one who is taught to believe the
God of Creation and the God of Israel to be an evil T
Granting then that the true formula has been uttered by
people of such tenets’, he argues with force and dignity that
the rite is not a question of words : that the absent Christ, the
absent Spirit are not bound by them, as by a spell, to bless
untruth, unfaith, broken charity. Thus then an effective
faith on the part of the recipient cannot be secured by the
formula.
(3) Again, what may be effective faith outside the Church
is incapable of definition, It is no part of the Church's duty
or prerogative to graduate degrees of departure from the
truth. Since a death suffered in persecution for a spurious
creed ought clearly not to rank as martyrdom for the truth,
how can there be ascribed to erroneous baptism a virtue that
is denied even to the Baptism of Blood‘?
But it is when he comes to the handling of the Historical
Proof that for a time Cyprian scems to have his adversary
in his grasp.
(1) He had pleaded ‘Usage,’ and Cyprian, with a fire
Ὁ Ep. 73. 18 The Author on Rebaptism follows the
? Ep 13. 5. and ZA pede The same line of thought. e 15.
‘first appearance of his argument is in — * "
his “Master (Tert. de Bapt. c. 18), who
that is to say, aes ace
their baptism and
because not the same;
it not duly and prop
mot at all; and that
ut of whi and as ist, but in an wnsubstantial:
they have not they cannot receive.’ —(sltaio) mime of Christ!
VIL Ut. THE ARGUMENTS—CVPRIAN'S 3. HISTORICAL. 409
caught from Tertullian’, argues that no lapse of time, no
extent of use can countervail Truth. Newest found Truth is
more precious than the most venerable error’. Usage may be
an apology for ignorance while ignorance lasts, but it cannot
be a reason against Reason’.
(2) Moreover the argument is two-edged. The use of
Rome was not the universal usc*.
(3) Again, it was argued that seceders from the Church
were not rebaptized upon their return to it, why then should
they in whose fellowship they had lived meantime be differ-
enced from them? He replies that they had once received
that one Baptism which was ever-availing to them as peni-
tents for any sin. Their case was not parallel to that of a
heathen who had been made not a churchman at first but a
heretic*.
(4) It was argued that the original practice of the Church
was attested by the fact that the most divergent heretical
bodies recognised each the baptism of the others, and required
no renewal of the sacrament upon transitions: and so still (it
was said) the Church when they came home to her, had
nothing to require but a true confession’. Cyprian replied
that the Church had nothing to learn from heresy; and to the
objection that his own theory was in fact Novatian's, who re-
baptized even his Catholic adherents, he answered’ on a sound
principle* that accidental coincidence with heresy invalidated
Tert, de Val. Pigg 1s
? This meets the plea of Dr Peters
4p. 38) that Stephanus relied not on
Usage but on Tradition. Cyprian rc-
quired that Usage should be verified by
Reason and by Scripture before he
‘would allow It to be Tradition at all,
* Spy Ep 7s ty
* Ep. γι. €. which was also tme, as
Finnilian remarks, in other matters, ¢¢-
in the celebration of Easter, Ep. 75. ὅν,
Catholic Baptism as null, The former
* The Novatianists and the Donatists,
im the spirit of true Puritans, treated
! So Ang.
xi (16).
«o ‘THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION. ,
no Church usage, and that indeed the Puritanic mimicry* was
good as evidence of what Novatian had learnt in the Church.
(5) Caswistic difficulties arc met by him with genuine
breadth. For example, he is asked, ‘If regeneration within
‘the Church is thus essential, what is the position of those for
‘whom either term has failed ?—of catechumens martyred
“before baptism"? of heretics received in time past without
* baptism and so deceased*? "
His theory, like his Master's, was in this one point less
narrow than the more liberal party might have fairly expected.
Things essential to earthly order would not (he knew) bar the
goodness of God; the most glorious of baptisms sanctified
such as having lived by the light they had fell asleep in the
Church, though unbaptized ; no man should fear their being
parted from her eternally. ‘Simplicity like this is enough
for me,’ says Augustine at this, in the midst of his refutations*
Ready with an answer like this, Cyprian could yet more
effectively press the abandonment of error when detected,
and despise mere scruples of conscience as to the unknown
consequences? of Rebaptism ‘should the first baptism have
been perchance valid in the sight of God.’ As for casuistie
difficulties, such could be propounded on either side. What
for instance could even now be said as to the validity of
baptisms performed by a demoniac woman with every Chris-
tian solemnity ?—a professed prophetess who foretold and
claimed to have caused the earthquakes which led to the
persecutions of A.D. 235, who traversed frozen snows bare-
footed and unhurt, who had trains of followers for whom she
celebrated the eucharist with a form of ‘invocation not to be
discredited’, and seduced a deacon and a country presbyter?
Were her unexceptionable rites valid or no?
arum more,’ Ef. 73. 3« * “Lnvidia <a Ep. 75. 18:
* &. 75. το, A Cappadocian case.
given by pa Cp. the liberty
A Contra Cram. lle 38, (γὴν given to the wandering Prophets, ταῖν
VIIL 111. THE ARGUMENTS—CYPRIAN'S 4. BIBLICAL, 41|
The liberal Author on Rebaptism, though he calls a
certain Simonian Baptism, in which fire was exhibited upon
the surface of the water, ‘an adulterine, nay internecine’ rite,
does not absolutely declare rebaptism necessary even then'.
Of Cyprian's Biblical arguments the more familiar need
searcely more than simple mention. There is the ‘One
Loaf,’ ‘One Cup, * One Ark,—to which the Donatists added
*One Circumcision; ‘One Deluge.” There is the schis-
matical (note, not heretical) gainsaying of Korah. There
is the inference that if the Apostle baptized the household
on whom the Spirit had fallen’, how much more should those
be baptized on whom it was confessed by the imposition of
hands at their reception that He had never fallen.
A neat ingenuity appears in his dealing with some of the
passages ;—as when he explains* the omission of the Father's
Name from S, Peter's injunction of Baptism (Acts ii. 38) by
observing that these neophytes were Jews who needed but the
Son's Name to supplement their antient Baptism : or when,
on Philippians i. 18, which was quoted* as shewing that even
an Apostle recognised the evangelizing work of his opponents,
he points out that their work was within the Church and their
enmity personal not doctrinal.
Some of his most constant and conclusive quotations are
strangely erroncous. He perhaps started the interpretation of
Qui baptisatur a mortuo guid proficit lavatione gus*? ' He that is
‘washed after touching a dead body and foucheth it again, what
* profiteth he by his washing?’ as if it meant ‘He that is baptized
by one that is dead, ie by a heretic. This is quoted in his
sense by Quintus (Quictus) in the Council*; and constantly by
Petilianus, Cresconius, and other Donatists, against Augustine,
δὲ προφήταιν ἐπιγρένετε εὐχαριστεῖν boa ! ER TH
θέλουσιν, διδαχὴ τ᾿ iB "Ars το. ? ERTS tp
Unum de Presbyteris rusticum (Pk — * EA 73. τῳ:
D
Ὁ Noctor c. 17
* Sie. gt (py). go. Ej τὰ. αν
© entr, Epp. ot.
412 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
who at first was only able to reply that ‘the Dead" baptizer is.
ἃ heathen priest, or a deified hero, rather than a heretic, not
observing the omission of ‘and toucheth it again.’ When he
saw it he thought Donatus a ‘Fur divini eloqui, and yet
again discovered that in most of the older African manu-
scripts these words were wanting, and retracted his strong
language",
ΤᾺ spurious passage as well as a genuine one may have a.
‘spurious sense assigned to it, and run as mischievous a course.
Cyprian in the First Council on Baptism, quotes the Alex-
andrine addition to Proverbs ix. 18, Keep thee from alien
water, and of the alien font drink thon not, Since the Alex-
andrine Clement had already applied the further spurious
context So shalt thou cross alien water to * heretical baptism,”
and pass beyond an alien river to ‘the ethnic and disordered
waves to which their pervert would be hurried, it is possible
that Cyprian or one of his bishops (Tertullian does not quote
it) thence learnt the application. Firmilian adopts it from
them, and in the Third Council Nemesian of Thubuna (whose
unusually long speech shews that he read Tertullian as well as
Cyprian) makes the passage his own. Augustine’s common
sense is not misled as to the meaning, but its authenticity he
does not question*.
Then again favourite passages are Jeremiah xv. 18 and ii.
13. vex water and Broken cisterns are to Cyprian plain
ἀρ, They are not in the Vulgate, Cy»
prian and Firmilian of course give them
in the same form *ab aqua aliena alstine
τὰ εἰ a (onte, alieno ne biberis"; Neme=
sian ‘ab aqua aniem allena adie we
c; Denatt. δ.
Tie enclave ε
VIIT. 1n. THE ARGUMENTS—STEPHEN'S. 413
prophecies of heretical baptism. We may apply to him almost
literally the address of Optatus to Parmenian, when after re-
futing his Cyprianic use of the ‘broken cisterns’ he proceeds.
“You batter the Law to such purpose that wherever you
‘find the word Water you conjure out of it some sense to
‘our disadvantage’’ By the same verbal handling Cyprian
furnished the Donatists with their pet absurdity, * Let not the
sinncr's oil anoint my head,' as being David's denunciation of
heretical unction*.
There is no denying the poetic aptness of his favourite
application of ‘The Garden enclosed..the Fountain sealed..
the Paradise with its pomegranates’, from the Canticles, nor
of his bold pressure of the New Birth* and Sonship of the
Christian—who in Heresy can no more find a Mother, than
Christ can find in her the spotless spouse".
The Answer of Stephanus to this last was noble; that
Heresy was indeed an unnatural mother, who exposed her
children as soon as they were born, but that the Church's part.
was to find and bring them home and rear them for her
Still the argument was on neither side a matter of simile.
Whilst a glance through the references above given will shew
that Cyprian's scheme is not fully developed in any one place,
but has to be worked out from his correspondence, it did not
lic in fragments in his mind, but was to him intelligible,
coherent, logical—and was revealed.
Against such a piece of Christian philosophy, held and
promulgated by one of Cyprian’s powers and Cyprian's
! Optatns iv. 9.
2 Ps. cele (exl) g BA 76. 4.
Optazes iv. 7.
* Cant. iv. 12, 13: App 69. 3: 74
n 78. the
+ EP Te te
3 Ej.69.3; 74. 015 γ8. 15, answered
by Aug. c Crew. 1. xxxiv. (qo).
How poetry may be turned into cast-
414. THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION. =
character, backed by an army of prelates whom he rather re~
strained than stimulated’, moving as one man to his direction
yet with an independence which threw each upon himself for
his argument, how great was the triumph of Stephen!
No council assembled to support him. Alexandria remon-
strated : Cappadocia denounced", His good cause was marred
by uncharity, passion, pretentiousness, Yet he triumphed,
and in him the Church of Rome triumphed, as she deserved.
For she was not the Church of Rome as modern Europe
has known her. She was the liberal church then; the
church whom the Truth made free; the representative of
secure latitude, charitable comprehensiveness, considerate
regulation.
This question she decided on one grand principle—rather
a grand instinct as yet, to be informed later into a principle.
For Stephen's theology was not sufficiently advanced to define
it. Nor was it formulated until Augustine's time. It was the
principle which all the four western doctors contributed to
establish in the analogous case of ordination. It was the
same for which the Church must cver be content to set aside
her ever-recurring temptations to discountenance error by
denying the grace of those who err, to assert her dignity by
increasing severity, and to attract mankind, as Cyprian said
she would’,—and this is hardest to forego,—by her very
exclusiveness.
‘As there was much for a learned Cyprian to teach, so
there was something too for a teachable Cyprian to learn?
1 This must be our i : immo tu hereticis omnibus pejor ex...
his opening speech; they would bave — audacia, insolentia, imperitia.’ «Εν
liked well to ‘pass judgment’ on the ene was welcome; it had brought
Bishop of Rome: some would not only οὶ
‘provoked the sarcan of Tertullian)
ch — protrudes itself,"
flowers as ‘Animowus, iracundue.quin — ? Ef 73. 24-
VIIL nr THE ARGUMENTS—STEPHEN'S, 415
says Augustine’, criticizing his reproof of Stephen's indocile
temper. The fallacy which underlay Cyprian's convictions
was really that which had deceived Tertullian; which later
moved and maintained‘ the Donatists in extending to what
they held to be ‘Treason’ in an orthodox cleric the grace-
debarring power which their fathers had attributed to schism 5
which made Wyclif? deny the validity of Sacraments or
Orders given by a Bishop or Presbyter whilst in sin; which
led Calvin and Knox to refuse baptism to the infant children
of ‘papists, or the divines of Geneva to allow it upon a
charitable hope that the ‘grace which had adopted.,.the
great-grandfathers might not yet be so wholly extinct' as that
the infants should have 'lost their right to the common
5.81“
Although in Cyprian’, and even as it would seem in the
Donatists, there is no trace of such teaching as that the moral
character of the priest affects the efficacy of the Sacrament, yet
the Puritan dogma (compared with which any other sacerdo-
talism is but shadowy) That the minister is of the substance
of the sacrament' may be
3. De Bapt. εἰ Demat. v. xxvi. (ar).
3 "To confront ue with Cyprian's
writings as if they were bases of canoni-
cal authority.’ Auge εν Crescens Hi xxxii
(40); cl. Ang. Ap. 93. c 10 (38), ad Vin-
emt Ang. Ep. 168, c. 3 (9), ad Macrob.
δὲ episcopus wel sacerdos existat.
ini peccato woriali mon ordinat, conficit,
moe haptisat’ is a Wyclifite proposition
which some of his diseiples renounced
at the Council of London, A«D. 1382,
and which was condemned at Constance;
sce Labbe (Mansi), vol. χανε, eol, 696—
vol. XXVIE. col. 1207. "Venet, 1784.
* Hooker, B. 111. i. 19.
*. Routh (vol. att. p. est) strangely
accuses Erasmas of having written that
“Cyprian seems (in Zp, 67) to feel that
the sacrifice of ἃ wicked priest avails
nothing. but. rather defiles the people,"
considered to lie implicitly
for Erasmas continues "But he means,
1 think, im the esse of a bishop a-
quintod by heretics, who is mat 2 real
‘Bishop: hin rites do not profit thor
arbitrary, but apparently existed in am
unthought out fashion. For Augustine
scems always able to reduce them to à
disqualification,
had not so stated it. There is a special
ease too im bis c. Jut. Piles ont.
xxxv. (qo) ' You (Donatats] do not deny.
that the people (whom a criminal priest
Taptized) really tuere baptized.”
* Hooker, V. δεῖ. 4 m.
THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
416
in that one proposition in which Cyprian differed from the
rest of the West. It was not until Augustine's time that a
categorical answer was developed soundly to each separate
argument of Cyprian and his bishops: so long did they
retain their seeming convincingness almost unbroken, nay had |
become ‘like Scripture'* to their maintainers. 4
Yet the true solvent had evidently been perceived at once
‘by his opponents, although the minute fragments of Stephen's
own language which Cyprian gives us do not contain the
exact statement. ‘The grace of Baptism’ they said was
‘of Christ, not of the human baptizer/ He who baptized did
‘not give being or add force’ to the Sacrament, This had
been almost on the lips of the Numidians when they first told
Cyprian of their difficulty as to rebaptizing, ‘because,’ said
they, ‘Baptism is One’ That oneness is of the One Lord:
but they had allowed themselves to be put off with the supers
ficial reply that its oneness was of the one Church, and that
to admit non-Church baptism was to admit two baptisms or
to recognise morc*,
The Author on Rebaptism states it with even scornful
force, so that it is surprising that he should have let slip
for so many subtleties this real answer". “Let us, excellent
+P. gig, note 3.
3 Fechtrup, p. 201, n. 2, in trying to
answer Peters is misled by Peter
wrong reference (p. st) for hls perfectly
right statement. Peters should have
cited ZA. po. rond Ep. 71. 1. On the
other hand Peters is wrong in thinking
‘hat Cyprian himself has this ἘΝ to his
own error in Ef. 69. r4.
majestatis concedamus operationes pro
pras et i in τὰ
intellegentes
. sit emolumentum libenter ei adquies-
camus.
This is well expressed by Optatus,
lib. v. ee 15 ' Has res wnicuiqwe mom
jusd
ΠΟ baptzant operarios esse, non domines,
et sacramenta perse essc s&ncía, non pet
great ame.
gustine first both meets bim full and
reads the true lewon of his life, Con-
formity amid Differences.
VII. ur. THE ARGUMENTS—STEPHEN'S. 417
“sin he writes (as I believe against Cyprian himself), ‘render
‘and allow to the Powers of Heaven a might of their own,
‘and suffer the condescension of the Divine Majesty to have
*its independent operations."
His conception of the visible Church is indeed higher than
Cyprian's and had he learnt how to apply it, would have
been of more value than all his arguments besides. ‘What,’
he asks,— unless some higher principle modify the rigidity of
“your strict formula—What is the portion reserved for the
‘Christian multitude’ which dies without the imposition of
‘hands ?'— What for those bishops themselves, his irony
adds, ‘who fail to visit and confirm such as sicken and die in
‘the outlying districts of their dioceses*?"
"Thus on every side, he infers, even within the acknow-
ledged pale, even within the entrenched lines of saints and
martyrs, there lies a vast verge beyond the operation in full
measure of that simple sacerdotal unity, which is nevertheless
essential to the gencral effectuation of the gospel.
And what lies beyond the pale2* It is in the solemn con-
sensus which exists as to the adequate and complete sanctifi-
cation of that admitted verge or margin that we are to look
for analogies which shall solve the new-rising problems sug-
gested by the existence of heresy, We cannot subject all
truth to the conclusions of à theory which is true up to its
limits, but which has limits beyond which nothing is clear save
the Love and the Power*.
Cyprian's demand for a sanctity in the baptizer in order
to ‘justify and to sanctify’ the baptized’, may well have
revolted the Church of Rome as it does the Church of Eng-
land. Doubtless he took the terms in a weaker sense than we.
flow out beyond it?"
* «Salvation is of the Church": True.
“alla salus exta ecclesiam s True, if
1v. c. vi. (6) “If within the closed the definition of Ecclesia be so wide ax
garden of God there are thorns of the — to have 90 amutitidioned value.
Devil, why may not the Spring of Christ ? ΖΛ. 69. te.
B. 32
418 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
But they at least make Stephen’s invective intelligible. -
structure of the Church, the apostolic teaching, per:
work of Christ seemed to him endangered' And
50; had not theological science arisen to refrain such
modes of speech.
Stephen taught that as one who separates from the
Church does not forfeit his own church baptism by his
wandering, but when he returns will return in its validity,
so neither in the meanwhile does he lose the ‘power’ which
as a baptized man he possessed of imparting Baptism to
others".
And he taught that the child or the heathen who learns,
Christ through the teaching of the heretic cannot be charged
with 'defect or disorder" in the reception of that i
to which he comes with fullest faith*, and which it is the will.
of God to impart to every creature. Though he is excluded
from ‘fellowship in holy duties with the visible Church/—
the deata vitz as Augustine truly calls it—yet of that visible,
Church he is still a member. Its true image is the great House
with all its variety of vessels, and the Cornfield, capable of
including for awhile, nay even of producing, not misbe-
lievers only, but misdoers*, These teachings of Stephen on
the lasting virtue of Baptism were reaffirmed by Augustine
with overflowing illustration, but there is no thought in either
that Baptism has in it any spell to countervail separation.
That would be not liberality but superstition.
Whatever evil is in heresy or schism, or in any form or
origin of them, is no more purged by Baptism than any
1 Bj gs ast d pieu- νεῖν wording to have softened Cyprian.
*
though these illustrations are not.
among the fragments of Stephen
3 vere already in use.
hhad perceived their bearing on the case
q of the Lapsed, though he now failed to.
ch ought by its apply them more widely. Bp: $8 41:
VIEL. 111. THE ARGUMENTS—STEPHEN's, 4'9
unrenounced sin, As it is no step to salvation, but away from
it, if one obtains baptism by a feigned or inconsistent repent-
ance', so if another is baptized a foe* to Unity, to the Peace
of Christ, to Charity with His Church, these are not conditions
for realising the Remission of Sins. The innermost power
of baptism is in both men Jet and hindered, until it matures in
fellowship and unity regained. Both need a change’. Both
alike must make a more truthful confession’, But both alike
have received a consecration, and a ‘Stamp of the Lord’? which
protests to them, which makes for reconciliation. The change
they need is not another Consecration, but a fulfilment of the
former. With that it begins not to be present, but to be
profitable, to minister to salvation*; their sins melt away as
they enter within the bond of love’.
If policy, convenience, interest, taste, jealousy, self-will,
carelessness or the like take a man who knows there is but
“One Baptism’ to seek it from a separatist or to continue
with him in his separation, those errors of the soul will work
their proper effect; his knowledge will not excuse his in-
difference to unity.
health,
But the faithful believer who receives Baptism from the
outside teacher when his only other choice is to die unbap-
tized against Christ's word, has remission of his sins and
all other benefits. He loses nothing.
‘The symbols are lucid. The flood which upbears the ark
is deathful to the despisers Heaven's rain feeds thorns and
tares for destruction as well as wheat for the garner”, Yet
His Baptism is not for his soul's
?. Aug. de Bapt. c. Donat, vit. v. (8)
^ verbis non factis renantiantes.” 1. xii,
(18) *quid, si ad ipsam Baptismum fitus.
acci δ᾽
2.184. 1. xi. (21).
? INA. vi viv. (23).
* dds 1. xii (£8) " verax confessio."
* Aug. Ap. 95. § (ul Bonifacium)
*qux consecratio reum quidem facit
luereticum . habentem dominicum cha-
racterern.”
* De Bapt, & Donait. vii. liv. (103)
“non incipit adesse quod deerat, sed
prodesse quod inerat! L. xil. (18) ‘ad
salutem."
τ λων VL v. (ἢ.
«μά, vri, il. (6).
« Sid. vi. xl. (58).
27—2
430 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION.
Euphrates was not hedged in by Paradise. The river of
Eden flowed out into the world'. al
The Church has within every separated coit
something which is all her own’, By that something she
bears sons in them to herself’ They are not born to others,
When they turn homeward they are wholly hers.
"The only real blot which Cyprian struck was the
perhaps we ought to say the African, explanation of the
laying on of hands in the act of restoration to the Church.
If it had meant a first imparting of the Holy Spirit which
schismatics could not impart by their own imposition of
hands (for unquestionably they too used this rite), then it
might be fairly reasoned that their Baptism equally needed
renewal. But in reality it had no such meaning. Stephen
explains it clearly as a rite ‘unto penitence*': even Crescens.
of Cirta as *a reconciliation in penitence*' It was not the
imparting of the Spirit for the first time; it was a renovation
by the Spirit, an introduction to Communion of a repentant
and enlightened ‘Child of God, For ‘a Son of God"
throughout, in spite of his theological errors, Stephen de-
lares such an one to have been in the full sense". And it is
this very expression which was most offensive at Carthage,
and which is cavilled at even in the synodic letter of their
second Council* on baptism.
There were three intentions (besides that of ordination)
with which the imposition of hands was used, It was used
1. for what we call Confirmation. 2. for the Reception
of Penitents’. 3. for Exorcism. The second of these is
what Stephen clearly brings out as its true meaning in the
? De Bapt, c. Denatt, vie καὶ, (47). utroque nascantur, Zp. 72. 1; "fill
τ Mid. tx. (14). Dei
? In ponüentiam, £j. 74. 1.
+ Sentt. Epp.
ΠΤ Tn which sense it is used im the
| Apottolical Constitutions Wille o 9 tit.
χειροϑεσία καὶ εὐχὴ ὑπὲρ nav ἐν μετανοίᾳ:
VILL. ttr. THE ARGUMENTS—STEPHEN'S. 4n
reception of schismatics, while Cyprian maintained that it
meant the first, and thereon built a logical claim to have
Baptism repeated as Confirmation was repeated. Of his
extreme partisans, some would even have made it mean the
third’, and so treated the schismatic as a demoniac.
To some it has seemed not clear that Stephen meant to
exclude *Confirmation' from the idea. Still he shews no
intention whatever to include it; and he uses terms which
give to it the other sense. The doubt arises only from the
fact that Cyprian" endeavours to fasten that sense upon him,
and that we have no reply from his side. Similarly Firmilian
infers unfairly, and quite contrarily to Stephen's actual prin-
ciple, that if Baptism with its gracious gifts were communi-
cable by heretics, no imposition of hands need be used, but
that we might unite with them in their prayer-meetings and
at the altar and its sacrificc*.
Note om force of Stephens * Nihil imnovrtur. nisi?
Questions have arisen upon the phrase of Stephen ‘Si qui ergo a
*quacunque birresi venient ad vos wihid imwovetur nisi quod traditum est,
‘ut manus illi imponatur in poenitentiam... f 74 τ. Does Stephen
here (1) contemplate a ' Renewal" (innovetur) of samething for the comvert,
‘but only such ἃ renewal or repetition as Tradition warrants? or (2) does
he forbid ‘Innovation’ im the rites, and require Tradition to be main-
tained again: -—Does the iwnovari mean ‘renovation’ or ‘innovation’?
Mattes (Tibing, Quartalschrift, 1849, p. 636, ap. Peters, Fechtrup and
Hefcle) adopts the first, and argues that as Penance has not occurred before,
the thing to be renewed is Confirmation. So Hefele declares (B. 1. c. i,
$ 6) that the second could not have been expressed grammatically
3 Sent. Bof. 9. 9.3%. 37+ ‘others prove nothing. Thews. author-
* £p. 53. δι and so Nemesian, Sew, ity in Cyprian offers Carpes, and an
Epp. s. and Sceundiaus Dp. of Carpos, inscription ad. 350—361 has KAX ros
enit. Epp. 24. ‘which Wilmanns would wrongly correct.
1 may remark that Tissot t. 1. p. 164
would correct the name of this place
{which was nearly opposite to Carthage
0 the gulf) to Carpi: but one of hix Coria MARGE, p.
citations from the maritime Itinerary * ΔᾺ 75. 17.
has @ Carpor Carthaginem... ant the
T echtrep (p. 225).
who sees that the clause ‘ut maaus imponatur ἐπ pemifendiam’ is the
quod traditum ext) and yet the act cannot be said ‘to be
positive. ‘Thus in Velg. Matt. v. 13, ‘ad pihilum valet ultra més ut
mittatur foras’ does not mean that vapid salt Aas a value for the one
purpose of being thrown away, but that ‘it is of πο value and be
treated so" —" Et multi leprosi erant én Zrrae/ sub Elisaeo
orum mundatus est nis? Naaman Syrus! (Lac. iv. 27), ‘no Israclite was
cleansed, ut a non-lsraclite was" So Cyprian Kj. 63. 13.*...Sic vero.
‘calix Domini non ex aqua sofa aut vinum sofww wir utrumque sibi.
* miscearur, quo modo nec Corpus Domini potest esse farina soda aut aqua.
‘sola nisi utrumque adunatum fuerit ‘Each element is nat one substance
but a compound.’ Hence the passage before us ‘nihil innevetur nisi quod
traditum est' means, in accordance with usage, ‘No innovation is to be
made, only tradition must be kept to Eusebius (//. E. vii. 3) also had
these very words before him when he described Stephen as μὴ δεῖν re
νεώτερον παρὰ τὴν κρατήσασαν dpxiber ma » ἐπικαινοτομεῖν.
liue; and Cyprian thus sets them aside, ‘quasi is isxovef qui unum
"baptisma uni ecclesia vindicat, et non ille utique qui...mendacia profana
‘tinctionis usurpat Vincent of Lerins (Commonit. i. 6), who gives the
phrase as ‘nihil novandum mii quod traditum est, explains it ‘mom sun
posteris trader sed a majoribus accepta servare.’ We conclude therefore
with certainty that fnnovelur does not refer to the renewal of anything,
but to innovations in the rite, and that the Imposition of Hands which
‘tradition’ required was that which appertained to the Reception of a
Penitent alone,
Hefele, in spite οἱ rammar,' admits (in a footnote) that
this is the interpretation of Christian Antiquity and that the words 80
understood became a dictum classicum.
ΜΉΤ IV. ECCLESIASTICAL RESULTS. 1, UNBROKEN UNITY. 423
IV. Ecclesiastical! Results, τ. The Unbroken Unity.
Of all the legacy of lessons which this remarkable story
leaves us, none more strike home than those which spring from
the observation that Cyprian had a real point of contact with
Novatianism. We have already seen that the Novatianists
perceived it.
The central idea with both was that the Church must be
attainted by, and therefore cannot tolerate, the admixture of
elements foreign to her spirit. Such inadmissible clement the
Novatianists found in those who, having tasted all her gifts,
forsook her and forswore them, In the case of the Lapsed,
however, Cyprian detected the fallacy. He would not, like
Novatian, leave them to be reconeiled in some unpenetrated
region. To him they were still the Church's reconcilable chil-
dren; not really such aliens as many wilful offenders within her".
To himself however the bounds of the visible Church were
marked by historic lines—lines divinely drawn with perfect
definiteness and unfailingly preserved for the guidance and
security of all, Without the action of the Catholic ministry
of the one episcopate there could be no effective Communion,
and no admission within even her outer courts, For who was
to admit? The moral qualities or the correct beliefs of the
individual were irrelevant to the solely constitutional question,
Has he been made a member of the visible Church ?
According to Novatian, Renouncement of Communion
annulled membership for ever, According to Cyprian, un-
catholic Baptism never conferred it. We are not required to
appraise the two crrors, But the grand difference is here.
Cyprian’s historic lines, which misunderstood had baffled him,
when rightly interpreted corrected him. Novatian with his
unsoftened character broke from them without remorse, laid
new ones down, and made all converge upon himself. The
1 Ep. 95. τιν
Divine idea which Cyprian saw in History, the NES.
which underlay the scheme of it, would not suffer him, though |
opposing the claims of heretics, to dissolve the ties one
Single diocese, much less with all, However any
sec and its prelate might decide, it was inconceivable that he
should break with the brethren, The heart of Love kept him
straight where the logical mind went astray.
So Novatian became a sect ; not untruthful, but hard and
barren: died after a while and left no seed,
The great Church held her way, and every generation as.
it swept its sands over Cyprian's error bore stronger witness to
the power of Cyprian's passion for unity. Whilst he seems.
almost dearer because he could not be perfect, the perfectness
of that passion of his is still unrealised, and too often unfelt.
Although the Roman Church took wider views than
Cyprian of so great a matter as Man's Sonship to God, yet, as
to the possibility and duty of union in diversity, he held a
practical theory which Rome never mastered.
Augustine, who says he never wearied of re-reading the
*peace-bestowing utterances" of the end of the Epistle to
Jubaian*, draws out the noble independence of thought and
action which Cyprian willed to maintain without bigotry or
exclusion—Every bishop free to judge for himself; none to
suffer separation for their thoughts ; therefore everyone to be
tender of the bond of peace. Salvo jure communionis diversa
sentire,
2. The Baptismal Councils failed doctrinally—and why?
Unity then was not broken, Yet what is the conclusion
to be drawn from the spectacle of these Carthaginian assem-
blies? To some it might seem discouraging.
Can it be accounted for by the incidents of these
assemblies ? Ἢ
1 De Bapt. e. Denatt. v. xvii. (49). ? BA gy 26
ΝΠ], tv, 2, gesUvLTS. THE COUNCILS FAILED.— WHY? 425
A Province may be too large to form a real Synod.
There are Provinces of to-day whose very extent, forbidding
even attendances, throws decisions into the hands of a metro-
political party.
Bishops may be too numerous for the area. There may
be more positions of influence than there are men born or
drawn to fill them. In such cases the numbers outweigh the
able men, or they fall under the power of politic men. A
leader who combines fervour with policy sweeps them head-
long.
But the degree in which these causes as yet existed at
Carthage is not sufficient to account for the doctrinal failure.
They were exceptionally modified by the independence ex-
pected of the bishops and by the earnestness of the times.
The Councils were neither deficient nor excessive numeri
cally, nor were they created for the sake of their suffrages,
nor were they packed, They were under no State pressure.
They were not recalcitrating at any state tribunal ‘The
question was a broad onc. They were not trying a teacher or
judging a leader. They were looking for principles. Seldom
could personal elements be so nearly eliminated. Again, they
were really representative. Each bishop was the clect of
his flock. None of the Councils was senile or too youthful.
The members were not drawn from seminary or cloister,
They were men of the world, who in a world of frecst
discussion had become penctrated with Christian ideas:
seldom ordained, sometimes not Christianised till late in life.
Their chief was one in whom mental and political ability were
rarely blended; rarely tempered with holiness, self-discipline
and sweetness,
Such was that house of bishops. The result it reached
was uncharitable, anti-scriptural, uncatholic—and it was
unanimous.
A painful issue. Yet in another respect, the moral is for
us encouraging. The mischief was silently healed and per-
426 THE BAPTISMAL QUESTION. ECCLESIASTICAL
fectly, And how? By no counter-council—for later decrees:
merely register the reversal—but by the simple working of
the Christian Society, Life corrected the error of thought,
Is there then no need of Christian assemblies? no hope in.
them, or of them? Is the Church a polity unique in this
sense, that without counsel it can govern itself, without de-
liberation meet the changing needs of successive centuries?
"To how great an extent even this may hold true we read in
the disappearance of the Cyprianic judgments, Nor can any-
thing be more consonant with our belief in the indwelling
Spirit of the Church ; nothing more full of comfort as we look
on bonds still seemingly inextricable, and on steps as yet
irretraceable,
But nevertheless if no reasonable mind questions the neces-
sity of Councils, in spite of the gloomy moral and doctrinal
history of whole centuries of them, may it be the case that
their constitution has been incomplete, and that the so early
ill success of Cyprian's Councils in particular was a primzeval
warning of the defect?
The Laity were silent. Yet we cannot but deem that it
was among them principally that there were in existence and
at work those very principles which so soon not only rose to
the surface but overruled for the general good the voices
of those councillors. Each Council was a parliament of head
officials; a governing body composed of provincial governors,
whose irresponsibility, save in the forum of their own con-
science, had more and more become Cyprian's axiom and
theirs,
Were these bodies divinely constituted for the great object
of 'guidance into truth'? were they the very Church in its
* doctrinal capacity, the living Church to which The Presence
was promised? It has been held that they were and ever are,
Yet whatever false strands have been inwoven with Catholic
doctrine have been introduced by such bodies alone, These
particular judgments were, according to the whole Church.
VILL IV, 3, 4esULrS, THE COUNCILS FAILED.—WHY? 427
Catholic, greatly perverse. They were even then contrariant
to the Church opinion which surrounded them and quietly
prevailed over them. That this was so may be inferred from
several considerations: 1. from the determined unanimity of
the Council: the eighty-seven sentences voiced only one
oracle. 2. from the avowal of two among the number that
they were incompetent to form an opinion, yet they did not
abstain from voting, but voted with the majority. 3. from
the evidence which the Book on Rebaptism gives of a power-
ful and informed opinion existing yet unrepresented. 4. from
the silent reversal of the decision.
It is truc that in and from the second century Synods of
Bishops were the rule. But all that we know tends to the
conclusion that it was no ‘derogation of antient custom to
admit others than bishops to be members of a synod*' The
custom of admitting laity was dying out under Cyprian*. It
had becn no new experiment of his. The second and even
the third centuries preserved traces of their old admission,
The intrusion of the words ‘and the’ into the text of the Con-
ciliar letter of Jerusalem, ‘The apostles and the presbyters
and the brethren greeting...,’ shews that at the time when they
were added? it did not seem so impossible that the laity should
have consulted even with apostles; that they had in reality
been consulted appears from the narrative, ‘ It was determined
by the apostles and the elders together with the whole Church,
unless this is thought to be rhetoric, — Irenzeus writes a very
grave decision on the keeping of Easter ‘in the name of the
1 Hefele's assertion. Autre. § 4, 5-
Cann. Keel, Afr.c. too τί. ες φι. Acta
It seems that in later African Coun-
Gils seniorer plebis were at times con-
sulted. This may be a relie of the
early usage, but the sbudowy character
of the facts only illustrates iis practical
dina and dogs mot support
Münter's view of the democratic aspect.
cof that church. Primordia Heel. Afr.
(Hafnizs, 1829), pp- qt, si. See Cad
Purgotiomis Felicit ap. Optat. ed. Ziwsa.
(Vienn. 1893), Appendix p. 198,
? Acts xv. 23. Tischendort
he retained καὶ οἱ in Ed. 7, omits itin.
Ed. δ. and it is omitted by Lachmann,
Tregelles, Westeott and Hort, and Re-
vised Vers with ABN*CD, Vulg. aif
isle s Decretum eat, Placuit, Acts xv.
».
ὀνείλσενν whom he presided over throughout Gaul'! Is it
supposed that he had not obtained their judgment? Α΄
very early writer? speaks of the formal condemnation of
Montanism by Councils, ‘Tike faithful throughout Asia
‘having met for this purpose, many times, and in many places
‘in Asia, and having examined the novel arguments, and
‘demonstrated their profanity, and having rejected the
‘heresy’ It seems impossible that ‘the faithful! should not
include the laity, and the question is of doctrine, subtle doc~
trine. Origen, in a passage which would not be conclusive
if it stood alone, uses an expression which, side by side with
others, hints that the consultation of the laity by the bishops,
though disused in his day, had its place in the traditions
of the past as well as in reason. ‘Moses sought the counsel
‘of Jethro, though an alien to the Jewish race. But what
‘bishop in the present day .. condescends to take the counsel
‘of an inferior priest even, much more of a /aymam, or ἃ
‘Gentile?’ He has been showing that the ‘counsel of the
Gentiles’ was to be learnt from their great authors, and
apparently some practical way of consulting presbyters and
laity was not unknown to him.
But the earlier Cyprianic letters themselves are distinct as
to the propriety and duty of recognising and including a not
silent laity in the Councils of the Church.
It cannot be admitted that Cyprian meant to consult the
laity on only personal, individual questions, such as enquiries
into the fitness of private persons to be restored to com-
munion* That is very far from what he says when, for
?. Euseb. ΑΓ. v. 24 ἐκ προσώπ Euseb. v. 16 made this clear.
ἡγεῖτο κατὰ τὴν Τ᾽αλλίαν. mend. Οήᾳ, Hom. αὐ, ἐμ Bored. c. δ
eg 'Quis autem hodie eorum qui populis
prasunt..' The version no doubt rev
presents προεστώτων. Cp. mote om.
Pe 310,
* Dr Pusey, Councilr of the Church,
6, Iri. pp. 24 599°
VIL αν, 2, easezrs, THE COUNCILS FAILED.—WHY? 429
instance, he thus addresses the presbyters and deacons of
Carthage: ‘I could give you no reply at all by myself, for
“from the first outset of my episcopate I resolved to transact
‘nothing on my own private judgment without your counsel,
‘and without the consent of the laity. But when by God's
“grace 1 am come to you we will treat in common of things
“either transacted or to be transacted, as the honour duc
‘from each to other requires’ At the commencement of
his episcopate the question of restoration had not arisen.
Again, when he asks the laity to persuade the Lapsed to
patience until, ‘convening our fellow-bishops, we may in good
‘numbers—deferring to the discipline of the Lord and the
*Confessors' presence and your own opinion also—be able to
‘examine the letters and express desires of the blessed
* martyrs", it is the determination of the broad principle, not
the application to particular cases, in which the Laity are
called to assist. Yet if we narrowed to the utmost the
questions proposed, it would be little to the purpose; we
should still have to ask where even this measure of consulta-
tion with the veritable laity appeared in the later Councils?
It was no mere question of the application of rules, no
investigation of individual cases, which was in view, That
function is not necessarily conciliar. It is judicial. That
function may be committed to delegates, it may be concen-
trated in a metropolitan, according to the constitution or the
use of the several churches. It was not this which Cyprian
had in the early days of his episcopate, and seconded as yet
SER A 4 sensi et subscripsi (Labbe, tom. v. 6-814.
5. 5A 17-3
5 Hefele, Zntrod. 4. 134 gives a thin list
‘of Councils in which laity have a serious
place, and he attaches quite ax much
‘weight to them against hin own opinion
as they deserve. ‘The most notable is
Orange (Arausicanum 11.] A.D. 529. in
which 14 bishops and 8 illustres viri sign
with the same formula consemeiens or coms
430
by the Roman clergy, struts DES c οἷον Ὁ
laity.
"In so vast a business" writes the Roman --—
him, *we approve what you also have yourself recommended,
“first to await the restoration of peace to the Church, and 50.
‘after that, by united counsel with the bishops, presbyters,
‘deacons, confessors as well as the faithful laity, to consider
“the treatment of the Lapsed?! It is not the treatment of the
individuals which is in question here, but the greatest question
of discipline which had ever arisen, the terms of the restoration
of apostates to the communion of the Church. The Roman
Confessors state in precisely the same way the views of Cyprian
and of themselves as to the body which has power to deter-
mine principles so great. It is becawse ‘the offence is so great’
because it ‘affects almost the whole world ' that ‘it ought not
*to be, as you yourself write, handled except with caution and
* moderation after counsel taken with all the bishops, presby-
* ters, deacons, confessors, and the faithful laity themselves, as
‘in your letters you yourself too testify, lest through our ill-
*timed wish to patch up ruins we may prove to be preparing
*other and greater ruins*,’
It cannot be argued with these passages before us that the
laity, though present, were originally meant to bc present
only, and not to be consulted’.
Cecconi, Stud. Storihé sul Cone. di
ires, Part 1. docum. 76, p. exev.
(Firenze, 1869).
+ ,..quanquam nobis in tam ingenti
3 Kp, 19. » ‘This is what bete
both the modesty (svrecnndia) and dis
cipline and the very life of us all, that
It was Cyprian's purpose to
we bishops assembling with clergy, the
faithful laity also being present, who
themselves too are to be had in honour
jin proportion to their faith and fear,
may be able to arrange all things with
Bishops will decree but not without eom-
letermination. ‘To Interpret *fvie-
sente etinm stantium βίεδε᾽ as of by-
standers only is to contradict the other
passages and this alvo. Yet Hefele cam
write (The laica were acarcely more tham.
spectators." (/ntesd. 84. 0} But if so,
VUL τν. 2. RESULTS, THE COUNCILS FAILED.—WHY? 431
consult them and a purpose which the Roman clergy strongly
supported, not upon the administration of principles in indi-
vidual cases, but on the formation and enunciation of those
principles. The question was 'the terms of communion' for
those who had lapsed from Christianity to heathenism
question as great in itself as the ‘terms of communion’ for
those who had been schismatically baptized.
It has been said that the first question was ‘the restoration
of those who had denied the faith;—a practical matter; and
the second question, ‘that of heretical Baptism,—a matter of
doctrine"! But it is not fair thus to formulate one of the
topics in the abstract and the other in the concrete, It would
be equally correct to reverse the phrases and to say the latter
was a practical matter, namely ‘the admission of schismatic
penitents, and the former a more awful doctrinal point,
' Apostatical Communion. But in truth two questions could
scarcely be more analogous as questions of dogmatic dis-
eipline.
‘The contrast (it is said) is very striking.’ That is most
true, Cyprian’s first view disappeared from his mind. His
early pledge was not redeemed. But when we look to the
ennobling success of his former Councils, and the collapse of
the later ones, rescued only by the sweet grandeur of the man
from creating wide disunion, we cannot but think the change
disastrous* The course of History affirms this conclusion
of Christian reason.
what becomes of his other ples, vir. that
castier precedent was departed (rom in
Cyprian’s admission of them, iid.
? De Pusey, Coumeils of the Church,
e. Ht. p. 87.
? Tr may be difficult to be sure of the
‘exact meaning of Hefele's assertion that
"Bishops elec have the amintance of
the Holy Spirit (o govern the Church
of God ' (Introd, B4, 11}, He speaks
however in reference to Councils, and
he distinguishes the vwtum derisum
which belongs in them to Bishops auly
from the venww consultaroum which
may be assigned to others Yet upon
3. The Catholic and the Ultramontane estimate "—
E τοῦ
μεμνῆσθαι τοῦ ἀνδρὸτ ἁγιασμόν. ᾿
It is. οἵ importance in the history. of. Christian chammcten
and of the gradual building up of that character, as the
spiritual expression of the consciousness formed by doctrine,
that we should have a clear idea of the conduct of Cyprian
through the controversy—Worthy or unworthy? behind or
in advance of his contemporaries? in his attitude in relation
to Rome catholic or uncanonical ?
His language is not always free from severity, yet when
most severe it is in such contrast with Stephen's hard state-
ment and arrogant threat; in such contrast with the common
style, that Augustine seldom refrains at mention of Cyprian's.
name from some epithet of mildness, gentleness, sweetness,
placability, peacefulness, His influence on Augustine’s own
controversial tone is probably inestimable. How different
it would have been if Tertullian and not Cyprian had been
his pattern, and yet we largely owe our very possession of
Tertullian to Cyprian's appreciation of him, and rendering
of his thoughts ‘into so quiet and so sweet a style’ It
was this which made the dark half-heretic intelligible and
acceptable to Catholics who, but for the scholar, would have
shunned ‘the Master.’ His moderation much exceeds that
of Firmilian and is equal with that of Dionysius, whose very
Hefele, Jutrod. § 4. 11, 12.) Uf these be — solitary episcopate.
eld, as they are, to be Councils as good [At the Council of the Nidd it is not
and valid as any,thenthe Divine Rightof — clear whether the Archbishop of Canter-
the Episcopal Onder exclusively to form — b d
concilinr decisions is given up, But if 1
36, what lines separate those particular
ranks from the laity or the + of the
the authority of all those Councils or de gest, Fvmtif. lib. 11.)
to the jus divinum in Councils of a.
VIIL1V.3. CATHOLIC versus ULTRAMONTANE VIEW. 433
office was the peacemaker's, not the combatant’s. But it is
in his conduct of business and in his public appearance that
he rises to the highest tone, Among the causes of the extra-
ordinary unanimity of the Councils we must reckon the
candour and immediateness with which he appeals to a
larger and larger circle of judges as 'the strife waxes hotter;
judges neither named by himself nor naturally biassed to-
wards him; bishops first of one, then of two provinces, then
from beyond their border.
‘If my sins do not disable me, I will learn, if I can, from
‘Cyprian's writings, assisted by his prayers, with what peace
‘and what consolation the Lord governed His Church through
“him”
“The very Deuter of the Man is a sanctification’.
Such were the judgments of Augustinc and of rese
Such has been the judgment of the whole Church. The
East, which knew little of him personally, accepted his
tenet as a sort of inspiration. For the simple detail of his
conversion it substituted a supernatural tale, and it assigned
him a supremacy all his own. ‘Not over the Church of
Carthage alone does he preside, says Gregory Nazianzen
in an oration delivered at Constantinople, ‘nor yet over the
“Church of Africa alone, famous until now from him and
‘for him, but over all the Western Church, nay and almost
“τῆς Eastern Church itself, and over the bounds of south
‘and north, wheresoever he came in admiration, Thus
“Cyprian becomes our own*' But where the man was well
and thoroughly known, there even while this his doctrine and
discipline were fading away, his excellent political wisdom
and energy, and still more his integrity and rare union of
Δ Ang, de Bapt, ἐν Demet, V. xvile rhs Καρχηδονίων προκαθέζεται κόσον Ἔκ.
(oal- ‘Poyelas) j compare other expressions of
"Greg, Nate Ore ae ily De S. Μίρ, τὴν κοινὴν Χριστιανῶν φελενιμίαν.
Cyrene. τὸ μέγα ποτὲ Καρχηβονίων trout viv δὲ
? Greg. Nar. Or. sa cxi (lp τῶν οὐενεμόνῳι Ardent, c.i
E. 28
434 THEBAPTISMAL QUESTION.
zeal and love, activity and moderation, made him at once | |
and for ever the delight of the West'. 4
For ever—in spite of the new malevolence, which since
the dogma of Infallibility has made it necessary for papal
advocates to bespatter each whitest robe that has not walked
in the Roman train. We must justify Stephen, both act and
method, is their deliberate language. ‘If we can succeed
‘in this by representations drawn from the documents, we
‘will not without irrefragable arguments treat the letter of
* Firmilian as a forgery or a romance*."
We have done justice to Stephen's correct judgment on
the particular point, and to the soundness of his reasons.
But that he claimed an authority which the great fathers
and churches disdained rather than discussed; that he placed
the just custom of his church in an uncatholic form against
the tradition of other churches, that his best reasons were
unreasonably presented, that his reception of accredited
doctors was unchristianly harsh, has scarcely been questioned.
till of late’. It is the burden of the evidence.
For be it first observed that of all who asked Cyprian's
counsel, of all his own councillors, of prelates assembled
from Africa, Numidia, Mauretania, of Firmilian and Dionysius
the Great, not one suggrsts the least deference to the Roman
See‘, nor mentions its estimate of itself as an element in
the question, or as a scruple to be borne in mind. Augustine,
who marshals every argument in refutation of his opinion,
mever suggests that obedience to Rome's speaking would
1 Doubtless present," says Augustine, — * In E^. jo. 2. the reference to
‘through the unity of the spirit" with
the Council which set aside his error.
See the whole of the beautiful language
of de Bapt. c. Dewalt. V. xvii. (03), Ὁἢ
* Peters, p. 54+
? See for example Tillemont, 5. Cy-
prion, Art xlviL xli, voL 1v. pp.
tag fy 1881.
the foundation upon Peter of the ene
Church having in this place mo relate
tion to Rome, corresponds with the
absence of any such reference im the
‘ part of De Ünitate c. 4. And.
the word rations here occurring:
‘bape gove coe to the vend! eat fed
the orationis of the forgery.
ὙΠ. 1V, 3. CATHOLIC verfus ULTRAMONTANE VIEW. 435
have saved him from his error. Gregory the Theologian had
not a suspicion that any authority could have been higher
than Cyprian's, ‘he presides over West and East!
The sole and the full evidence shews Stephen's claim as
ungrounded and his manner of stating it as intolerable,
But now the Ultramontane contention is ‘that Stephen
‘can never have contented himself with mere declaration,
‘because such a course would be so evidently ineffective to
‘dispel prejudice’. The fragments which lic in Firmilian's
‘letter must represent some elaborate refutation® Augustine,
‘unacquainted with that letter and with the treatise on Re-
‘baptism, excuses Cyprian ignorantly, as if Stephen had
‘appealed only to custom". Cyprian’s hard words shew that
‘he presumed on victory‘: his third Council of 87 bishops
‘was summoned in the confidence produced by his triumph
‘over Jubaian*: his arguments exhibit partly wantonness,
‘partly a determined adroitness in avoiding the point*: his
‘vindication of the independence of each bishop in unbroken
‘unity is a mere “turn” to forestall the expected prohibition
‘of his practices from Rome’!
This wily worldly politician—for he was no better if his
doctrine of unity was not the very pillar of his belief—' may
‘or may not have retracted his error formally. He ust
*have done all that Rome required or she would never have
‘placed him in the roll of saints, much less have com-
*memorated him in the canon of the mass Probadly he
'desisted from his practice without retracting, and this but
'shewed how holy Stephanus had taken the mildest way
*of bringing back the venerable wanderer to the truth. How
“great the guilt of Cyprian had been is known only to God.
* His other services, his martyrdom, atoned for it, But who
* Peters, p. 532+ * dd. peste
3 4d. pp. $46 549- * fd. p. 888 ‘mit welch vornehmer.
3 ΔΑ p. 53% Gewandtheit.... : vorbeiruschilfen."
* M pe ste fd pete
28—2
CHAPTER IX.
EXFANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENERGY
(RESUMED).
The Secret of Conduct.
L ‘OF THE Goop oF PATIENCE"
AUGUSTINE well-nigh adored Cyprian's ‘Heart of over-"
flowing love.’ He dwells on how he extended to worldly
or immoral colleagues the same loving patience that he
used ‘in tolerating those good prelates who in turn tolerated
him' when through ‘human temptation he was “otherwise
minded" on an obscure question*' Experience since Augus-
tine's finds antagonists on obscure questions harder to bear
with than worldlings—especially when one is oneself on the
subtler side. But whichever alternative is the harder, Cyprian
merits all the honour which even Augustine could bestow,
Tn an earlier chapter we saw how soon Cyprian recognised
that the new standing-point required a readjustment of ethical
views of old problems, whilst the position of the new people
daily created new problems. Persecution could not do its
unequal work and rouse no Resentments. Old riddles of
Sorrow and Suffering grew still harder to the called and
chosen whose choice and calling landed them in the loss of
all things. The whole philosophy of Probation had blossomed
Aug. ste Aft. c. Dowatt. 1v. ix. (13).
438 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND "2
out The philosophy of Spiritual Worship was in bud. On
each of these he had written, we have seen how.
But now the seething tumult of Christian opinions on
questions of intense interest to the faith, demanded, in supple-
ment to his philosophy of Unity, some Theory of Right
Feeling and Action amid Divergences apparently scarce less
vital than those which separated catholic and heretic together
from their joint oppressors.
Cyprian did not find himself involved as by surprise in
these considerations. — He had understood Christianity to
be the doctrine of a new and true School—the last and ever-
lasting. Here was ‘the Method of a heavenly Learning
“whereby our School (secta) directs itself to the attainment
‘after a Divine manner of the reward of faith and hope‘?
The scope of Paul's mission had been to ‘form the nations’;
that Apostle of Nations had expressly witnessed 'against
*their philosophy and empty fallacy, self-evolved and mater-
* ialistic—secundwm. traditionem. kominum, secundum elementa.
“mundi’—in contrast to that reality which ‘rested on the
person of Christ indwelt in by the fulness of deity *^
To develop and apply the influences of this fresh and
powerful factorto thought and action was a pressing necessity.
And now, at the outset, what was befalling the very foun-
tain of the new morality, the Spirit of Charity or Love?
To say nothing of the threatening masses of heresy, was
this new controversy with Italy only a new field, such as
heathenism had never known, for Intolerance, Jealousy and.
Hate? Evidently the supremacy of a Power actively an-
tagonistic to those Church-passions must be affirmed and
enforced. The old les were world-riddles of life, "The
Church-riddles injected no less perplexity into faith.
Cyprian found the danger strong in himself Tt grew
among his partisans as fast as among his adversaries. His
own action had awakened it. It was his to find the remedy.
Y De Bono Patientie 1, 2 De B, Pate a
1X. 1. SECRET OF CONDUCT—'DA BONO PATIENTIE! 430.
Accordingly, writing to Jubaian', he says, 'So far as in
* us lies, we are not, for the sake of heretics, going to contend
‘with colleagues and fellow-bishops: with them I keep
‘Divine concord and the Lord's peace....In patience and
‘gentleness we hold fast by charity of spirit, by the honour
‘of our college, by the bond of faith, by concord within the
“episcopate.
‘To this end I have just composed a small book on
* The Good of Patience, to the best of my small powers, under
“the permission and inspiration of the Lord."
Under this simple heading, which appears in the pamphlet
itself also*, and which is caught up from a passing touch
of Tertullian's', he develops his new chapter of Christian
Ethics. Were it not thus dated and motived by himself*,
its determined exclusion of the least provoking allusion—
an example of its own teaching not always to be reckoned
on in eirenica—might have left both motive and date doubt-
ful. That his auditors are subject to persecutions not only
from Jews and Gentiles but from separatists also is its nearest
reference to circumstances*, No word about the ‘college
of bishops’ here, nor of any discord within it.
But what is the ‘Patience’ which Cyprian desires to evoke?
Patience was that element which Cicero combines with
the Realisation of High Ideals, with Self-Reliance and with
Perseverance, to complete the notion of Fortitude. And he
thus defines it*: ‘It is the voluntary and long-continued
‘endurance of hardship and difficulty for ends of honour and
“usefulness,
Was this what Cyprian longed to see becoming a more
word, ‘Unde sie Patientiam diseere-
mu Fn
* De B. Pat. at.
* De en. i $4 ! Fortitudo. ejus
partes; Magnificent, Fidentis, Pa-
lentia, Perwversntia."
440 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING A
active principle in the Church? No. tyrd
fessorship had more than fulfilled this ideal.
The Tracts and Epistles of Seneca are not |
Cyprian's in their purpose of raising the moral
society. And in Seneca a certain humanity, a ce
spirituality, breaks in upon his Stoic paradox on
He secs ‘a kinship and a likeness’ between God and ge
men. Εἰς regards the originally good as va thee pro EE
God, and their worldly afflictions as*a lovingly severe
cation.’ It is in their ‘power of Patience’ (endurance) that
the ‘might of virtue is shewn'; and it is ‘by Patience
the spirit comes at last to contemn the power of evils’ But
Seneca finds the perfection and the reward of Patience in
a habitual joyous Pride in self, with a pleasant contempt for
undisciplined minds* He attains to the paradox that herein
man has the advantage of God—that while God stands
only ‘outside the endurance of evils, man stands above that
endurance*^
It was something more than this antique virtue that
Cyprian perceived. There was a new thing in the world, a
gift of God, the impartment of a something out of God's own
nature, and so a certain seal of Sonship* Patience is of the
Father, and ‘the sons must not degenerate’. The perfection
‘of the sons is the restoration of the original likeness of the
* Father in the manifestation of His patience,” ‘ Perseverance
in Sonship' is the imitation of the Father's patience.
What then is the new spirit which now enters into the
old word *?
4 Sen. Dial. 1. vi. 6.
* Cur Deo virtus ista. communis,
| Deo auctore, Ze 7. Fut, ας, γαῖ res, αν
ΠΥ De B. Pat. jy 5, 10
© Dr Peters gives a wondy, income
petent account of this treatise, which
he characterizes as very easy to under.
multu contemplanti quietem suam. stand,—as it is, if the exceeding diffi.
IX.1. SECRET OF CONDUCT—'p# BONO PATIENTIA 441
Cyprian docs not verbally distinguish the aspect of the
virtue regarded as the power which dears from that of the power
whick forbears; the sufferance of calamity from the repression
of the desire to avenge oneself. Both unite in his PATTENTIA.
In the New Testament we commonly have two words for
these two aspects, ‘endurance’ (Aypomone), for the former;
‘long-suffering, tolerance’ (macrotkymia), for the latter.
‘The former is opposed to cowardice or despondency, the
‘other to wrath or revenge. The former is closely allied to
‘hope, the latter is commonly connected with mercy'”
But in Aristotle the former is the child of unmanliness
or cowardice; and Cyprian points out that the philosophies,
whether Stoic or Cynic’, which exercised it did not, in
theory or in practice, aim at cither Awmility or milduess, but
were essentially self-satisfying and severe*, But humility
and mildness are to the Christian grace exsential*.
The second aspect of Patience (macrofAymia) places itself
culty, which Cyprian himself points out,
οἵ eoerelating beathen and Christian
red.
? Bp. Lightfoot on Col. i. κεν adding
that the distinction ἐν not without ex-
i» Cymicimn which Tertullian
has in view in the parallel passage of
minae axquanimitatis stupore formata."
* De δ. Pat. à.
it. het, li. 6 ἀπὸ ἀνανδρίαν γὰρ
las ἡ ὑνομονή.. ἀρὰ classical go-
ἀκανμίω was never clear of the slur. See
Tae Agric. τό *(Britanninm) unlus
privlii fortuna veteri. Aaienhie restituit."
Mrd (De δ. Pat, 2) derives both
these ideas, of the ῥεῖα sapientia and
‘of the eusential thought of Christian
Pationce as Aamidis and mis, from
‘Tertullian’s passing observations in his
c. xvi. and e, xii, Let me here quote
in support of the view of Cyprian
that Homility fs thus essential to its
idea a delicate analysis from Prof.
H. Sidgwick's article on Ethics in £n-
yel, Brit. (ixth ed.) v. vitt, p. egi at
"The far greater prominence (of Hus
maliy) under the mew dispensation
may be partly referred to the ex-
press teaching and example of Christ ;
partly, in «o fat ax the virtue is mani-
fested in the renunciation of external
rank and dignity, or the glory tesa
secular gifts and acquirements, it
Tansee. oi uneahUlnay Sg
we hare already noticed; while the
Sue wll Sots Iauictipe anvenis δεσαπ ER
'and leisurely He does justice even on the
‘to spring in anger on those who hurt us, whilst
“burns and throbs and is convulsed, as if we were
a but, imitating His mildness and delays,
orderly, regretfully, and taking into our counsels Time, who.
ie likely to be visited with repentances, so to set our
‘hands to justice! |
By this excellent passage we sce that what Cyprian adel
to the idea is the resolution which, when we ourselves suffer
So cemeteries ak ecm iion E
to God ; and this it is which makes of Christian patience an
active power and an attribute of deity. Tertullian, while
giving the same counsel, ends his treatise with one glance
at ‘the fire beneath" which awaits ‘false patience’ as it
awaits all other falsities, But to Cyprian such a h
is not a hope but a dread certainty, and the God to whom
he bids the Christian commit his cause is. as he reminds
him, One Who has not yet thought it necessary to avenge
either Himself or His Slain Son or His persecuted Church.
We proceed to speak of the Form in which was. brought. |
out the necessity of this fresh Virtue. to the Church's life.
! Theophylact. Bulgar. Ad Gala. — ryre καὶ τὴν μέλλησω, ἐν τάζει καὶ per’
vem. ἐμμελείας, τὸν ἥκιστα μετακοίᾳ wpaesi-
Δ Plut, de seri: meminis indicto, v. vier χρόνεν Hyeeres ripiuskan
^M. μιμουμένου, τὴν ἐκείνου πρρὸ — Cf, Thuc. iv. τῇ.
IX. 1. SECRET OF CONDUCT—' DK BONO ΡΑΥΤΕΝΤΙΜ 443
Although it comes to us in the shape of an Essay for
devotional study it bears marks of having been originally
an Address to some audience".
It begins with thoughts and illustrations derived from
his ‘Master's’ tract on the same subject, shuns his harsh
views, avoids his mistakes, and misses his picturesqueness.
It is charged with sweeter and truer notions of Life in God.
And in a way quite unlike the specimens of remodelling
which we have examined hitherto, it avoids verbal coin-
cidences even when they seem inevitable.
While Tertullian starts from himself with a sharp gird
at his own feverish impatient nature*, which disqualifies and
yet fits him to discourse on the topic, Cyprian begins with
his audience, and with the occasion for the virtue of which
he is to speak, which they will find in listening to himself. *
Cyprian proceeds (as we saw) to indicate the need of a
new and Christian doctrine concerning a virtue lauded and
misrepresented in other systems—a fact about them which
Tertullian in one breath accepts as homage and resents as
impertinence*,
But ours is a Patience of Life, of Action, not of Specula-
tion—a part of God's own Nature and Self which passes
with His Divine Being into all His Sons, and belongs to
the restoration of the lost likeness.
Respondere Natalibus is still Cyprian's motto as in the
days of the plaguc*, and as he lovingly presses home our
^ 1f any editor ax moted this it — tram patientiam 2d esse necessariam,
expe me. Kwen Augustine calls it ut nec iptum quod emitir et discit,
am Epistola, c. Duar Epp. Peg D. sine patientia [acere powiti Tunc
vill, (22). Yet the opening phrase enim demum weno et ratio salutaris
indicate that it was orally delivered.
They are too full, and would be t00
fet, for & metaphor to readers ‘De
patientia. focutwra, fratres dilectisaimi,
«ἰ utilitates ejos ct commoda jrwdi-
enteras unde potius incipiam, quam
quod mune quoque ad emdicwtísm ves-
Lr
e$
IX. 1, THE *Z477£NCE' OF TERTULLIAN AND ΟΥ̓́ΡΕΙΑΝ, 445
in its fall, The tears of the new-born child initiate a state c 12
of troubles in which the Christian has the fullest share;
Patience is his one prospect of dealing with them; nor can
he find any other road to such special ‘Truth’ and * Free.
dom' as are promised him, nor into that Faith, Hope, and
Perseverance, which form the subjective part of his religion ;
nor yet find any other rampart of the Purity, Honesty, and c 1
Innocence which he guards.
Of Charity which is Christianity in essence, and of the « «s
Peacefulness, which so palpably differences Christian from
heathen society *, Patience and Tolerance are the substantial
substratum ἡ.
"This section of Cyprian's is also built on Tertullian.
Far less orderly and regular but far more picturesque and. Tert.
striking is Tertullian's handling. Tertullian finds the Necessity Rt
for Patience in the obligations of accepting Christ's view of
riches, bearing our losses and distributing our largesses
Christianly; in the necessity of taking Christ's view of in-
juries, though here his hot spirit cannot forego a distinct
satisfaction in the surprise and disappointment with which
our patience must afflict our enemi
a nobler view of the death of friend:
surrendering all vengeance into the hand of God. We have
to bear alike the results of our own misdoing, the plots
of the Evil One‘, and the corrections of God; we have to
become ‘humble and mild."
Ὁ Augustine, c. Duas Epp. Pelagg. iv, — * Tertullian uses fade ax the equi-
ifi. (22), points out the irreconcilable- — valent of ὁ πονηρόρ. Certemus igitur quae
ness of this pawage (c. rr) and ofc. 17 & Malo infliguntur sustinere, Again:
as shewing what Cyprian understood by Quaqua ex parte, aut erroribus nostri,
‘all have sinned’ with any Pelagian ant Mali insidiis, mut admonitionibus
opinion,
* Compare Cyprian’s first experience.
‘of this in av Donatws, t4, with this
which is bis last. general see Bp. Lightfoot
? ..patentie et tolerantlae farmitats. of the A.7: (e. 3), Apps Me Pag.
(De B. Pat, v6.)
446 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND
Peaccfulness', Forgivingness, The continuance « $
life after Divorce, Earnestness in Repentance, *
of the climax which, like his scholar, he teet
on with delight in S. Paul's perfect analysis of Cha
And then each has his characteristic corollary: ΤῈ
strangely—that we have so far spoken only of ‘a simple -
uniform Patience, merely in the heart’; but that she further
has a 'multiform function in the body—toiling to deserve
the Divine favour' This function is Asceticism. *
‘afflicting of the flesh is a placatory victim unto the Lord
‘through the sacrifice of humiliation ; offering squalor with
‘stint of rations" to the Lord; content with plain food
‘and pure water, joining fast to fast, growing into sackcloth
* and ashes.’
Of this satisfaction Nebuchadnezzar was an example,
though not of the highest order; and throughout every stage
of pain, self-inflicted or enforced by the persecutor, patience
is the minister of power.
This chapter with its extravagant teachings finds no
counterpart in Cyprian, and while it indicates its author's
tendencies even in his orthodox years, it instances also how
uncatholic fashions in the Catholic Church arise not from
her true fathers, but are the inventions of sectarian geniuses,
While Tertullian's corollary is the very wildness of self-
maceration, Cyprian's is that noble doctrine of Probation
of which the English Church philosopher has been the chief
exponent *,
sordes! would surely be too violent for
‘Tertullian, even if he tolerated the
heathen metaphor of dation, which
he nowhere does, and surely could not.
ΟΞ venture to suggest /a. Compare
Tert. de Fat. c. x. "Quem autem bor
norem Ntabimus Domino Deo"; adv.
Valent. i * Infantes testimonium Chrlsil
? Tert. de Pat, xili. ‘cum sordes eum — sanguine litaverunt."
angustis victus domino “iba.” ‘“Libare 4 Cyprian's exemplar of patience are
|
IX. τ. THE ‘PATIENCE’ OF TERTULLIAN AND CVPRIAN, 447
The ‘Necessity of Patience’ is im Tertullian prefaced, T. 4e P. v.
and in Cyprian followed up, by an enquiry into the ‘Origin,’ 2 5. #
or, as Tertullian has it, the ‘Parentage’ of Impatience?“ '*
Both assign its genesis to the same cause—The Devil's
Envy of Man. The older writer dwells with acerbity on
woman’s part in the Fall. All falls are traced to the same
source down to Israel's choice of * profane guiding gods*! to
the massacres of prophets, and (says Cyprian) to all the
falls of the heretics in his own day. But Tertullian has a T. 4e P. vi.
beautiful contrast of the genesis of Patience in the Faith of
Abraham and of her perfecting in Christ's doctrine of the
Love of Enemies.
Yet again Cyprian, rarely borrowing his words*, follows ὧν δ. p.
and enlarges his Master's list of the Effects of Patience in 2^, ju.
generating the altruism of the Christian communities and
their persevering work for the world through every keen
discouragement—as ‘sons of the Father."
At the last, the Master rises into the most beautiful T.4cZ.xv.
passage in all his writings, impersonating her beauty like a
Catherine of Raffaelle. ‘Her countenance still and calm,
“brow pure, no wrinkledness from mourning or from anger
‘to pucker it, eyebrows evenly smoothed for joyousness, eyes
*downcast in lowliness not unhappiness, lips sealed with all
‘the dignity of silence; her complexion that of free hearts
‘and innocent; she shakes her head at the Accuser, her smile
“threatens him; about her bosom her amice lies white and
‘folded close, unpuffed, unruffled ; for she sitteth upon the
the Lond’spacific calm,Stephen,Joband — him to employ Job's wife, But with
"Tobims; Tertullian's (De Fist. xiv.) are fine pathos, after calling him Dives in
censu dominus et in libeis pater
‘Tortallian’s details of the wife and the
detiste are borrowed by Cyprian bat not.
‘his atrange mistake that Job's children
‘were never repliced, and that he as
catically preferred to live alone. Cyprian
cannot refrain from supposing that
Satan’s success through Eve encouraged!
‘throne of that gentlest, kindest Spirit who ro
‘whirlwind, nor blackens in the cloud, but is
“clearness, open and singlehearted, the Spirit
‘third vision, Elias saw. For where God is, there also
‘foster-child, even Patience.’
So widbeukududeivueEpA e
he dashes suddenly into a wild invective against the patience -
« “of the Gentiles of the earth—a cheese
“them by Satan's self, emulating God. P: |
‘for gold's sake, patient of rivals, plutocrats, dinner-givers—
‘impatient of God alone...’ For this patience there waits
only fire, ...' We, we must offer the patience of the spirit,
‘the patience of the flesh, We believe in the resurrection of
‘flesh and of spirit—He ends.
Cyprian's conclusion is as different as may be aU
characteristic, ‘All retributions to be let alone by man. They
e£ Pit; belong to God, saith Prophecy. J have held my peace: shall
ὙΠ UL hold my peace for ever'?... The silent Lamb of the Passion
cc: 38,24. is the Judge who will not keep silence. He who avenges
not Himself, who so long avenges not His slain Son—shall
His servants, with unscrupulous, unblushful precipitation
vindicate themselves before He is vindicated? Rather, work
on, stedfast in tolerance, and in the “Day of Wrath?” stand
with the just and the godfearing,’
2. ‘Or JEALOUSY AND Envy,
The Tractate ‘of Jealousy and Envy, which long remained
abroad as well as at home a famous and popular *cpistle*"
5. Epistola populis nota, Aug. of, Baye,
e Donn. Ww. vilis (11) "librum...
valde optimum,’ Hieron. Comment. dn.
» Ep. ad Galatt. 1. lli, e.g.
* lle Ira οἱ vindicim Dis in the ——
IX.2, SECRET OF CONDUCT—'D# ZELO ET LIVORE! 449
belongs to nearly the same timc; but as it is unmen-
tioned in the letter to Jubaian it came out probably a little
later, although before the recommencement of persecution*,
This too is motived by the dread that in the official life of
the Church fresh fields were opening to commonplace passions.
Their outer activity might be checked by the rules of the
society, yet the religion would miss its end if it left Christian
hearts to be ridden over so secretly by that mysterious Being
whose energy Cyprian recognised in the constant depravation
of good as fast as it arose*,
These are some now visible effects of ‘blinding jealousy’
"There is a breaking of the bond of the Lord's peace, a
‘violence done to brotherly charity, there is a corrupting
‘of truth, a dividing of unity, a dashing into heresies and
‘schisms, (and it will continue) so long as there is this cavil-
‘ling at chief priests, this envying at the bishops,—any man
*complaining aloud at not having been preferred for conse-
*eration, or disdaining to submit to another's prelacy. Hence
‘one “lifts up the heel”; hence onc rebels, proud out of jealousy,
‘crooked out of rivalry, a foe through enmity and envy not to
*the man but to his office.’ Maximus, Felicissimus, Novatus,
still more Novatian, may have passed before his mind’s eye
as he wrote?; but it was the general condition of factiousness
which had to be probed in order to be healed. Such is the
motive,
The purpose then is in continuance of his plan of analysing
and developing the new school of life And in this his last
treatise he boldly feels after a more searching and more
formative discipline of the conscience than hitherto. He
goes to the foundations of spiritual self-knowledge
"This may be fairly inferred from Will of Evil.
the chameter of the exhortation in c. 3 This passage [εν 6) and that im
16. c. t? (p. 484) below must I think be
? Observe in this treatise the constant taken as a grave incidental judgment on
reference of phenomena to a Living — Nowatian's motives
». 29
It is upon the ‘dark and hidden devastation’ whi
ingly affects unwary minds’ that he focuses the
*The darts rain thickest from the ambushes. The more |
"hidden and clandestine the archery the more fatal itis Let |
‘us awake to understand it.’ And so through the whole treatise,
Teta to ‘the recesses’ of the mindy ‘the unhappinesatieliaaal
‘in the secret places of the heart,’ ‘the wounds deeply lodged.
‘within the hiding-places of the conscience,’ that he directs
men's own observation. And so with the course of remedy _
which he applies, It is the inner life of the conscience to
which the great organizer addresses himself in the last issue
Ttis the *Deifica Disciplina'—the ' Discipline that divinises’
—which must, which only can, complete our soul’s ‘Birth
unto God." v
The first question, ‘How am I to hold the grace once
given against the most secret and fatal of inner assaults?’ —
he answers thus:—By meditations—by exercises spiritual—
Reading, Thought, Prayer, Works of Charity. ‘For not the
‘days of martyrdom alone are the days of coronation for
“God's warriors. Peace too has her crowns’! *But how to —
attain them’ is the next question, ‘if Jealousy and Envy
have been long dominant in me*?"
* It is possible still,’ he replies, *The inner accurate search-
ing and weeding of the heart.. The sweetening of bitterness.
"The Sacrament of the Cross, with its food and wine.. Tie
imitation of good men, or, if at present that seems impossible,
sympathy with them, and delight in the happiness of others!
So nearly and so effectively does he reach the idea of an
enchiridion that he concludes with suggesting topics for
frequent reflection, and especially that one which in all
times has been found most potent, ‘The Practice of the
Presence of God.’
? Divina nativitas. Deifica disciplina. * ...tu etiam possis qui fueras gelo et
(c. rg). Carroborandus, firmandusani- — livore possessus. . (c. 17).
mus (c. 16).
IX.z, SECRET OF CONDUCT—‘DZ ZELO BT LIVORE! 451
Superficially unlike, this is in some respects the most
Cyprianic of Cyprian's tracts. [τ is broadly practical, and
it is defective in scientific analysis of the passion to be
subdued, though he rightly, like Clement of Rome, detects
it to be the most fatal of all to Church-lifc.
We will now ascertain his notion as to what Zeus and
Liver are, and conclude with his ideal of the opposite temper:
an ideal perhaps never more perfectly realised (never cer-
tainly by any controversialist) than in himself",
The Title ' De Zelo et Livore’ leads us to expect some-
thing of logical distinction. But the ‘et Livore' proves to be
rather a substitute for an epithet to explain in what sense he
means to use *Zelus*.’
For in Aristotle Zeos has none but a good sense—'a
reasonable quality in reasonable men,’ for it is ‘a kind of
* pain at a visible presence of good and precious gifts, possible
‘for oneself to attain; a pain not because another hath them,
‘but because oneself hath not.’ It is this classical sense which
CEcumenius well puts when he* calls it ‘an enthusiastic move-
‘ment of soul towards something, with some attempt to
'resemble what it so earnestly affects"
But such noble emulation may be depraved in two ways,
by a desire to engross the perceived good, or by the mere
base wish that the owner had it not. This antiently was
Piithonos, the ' mean passion of the mean,’ ‘pain at another's
good,’ ‘apart from any hope of obtaining it"; or, as Plutarch,
? Augustine has caught this Cy-
prion says (c. r3) ‘eam pose. cariatene.
emere, quisque magnanimus fuerit et
benignus et sey ac ἀϊνυγέν alienus."
Augustine says, "Vere decult. Cyprine
‘num de zelo ae livore et arguere groviter.
ct monere, a yuo tam mortifere malo eor.
jus penitus afiemzw tanta cargratis abun«
dantis comprobavit: qua vigilantissime
cwtodits, &e." De ep. e. Donati, wv,
vili. rr.
? D. Brutus, who was a lover of un-
fashionable words, i» seemingly the
only pric-Augustan who uses diver (Cie.
Epitt. ad Fam. xi. to, 1).
^ Khat. fie τι.
* CEeumen. Comment, in Kj. Cath.
cob. ι΄:
* Aristot. ὁ 6 and il, 10, μὴ ἔνα τι
αἰσῷ, ἀλλὰ M diro. C Adee
de! ἀνλωηρίφι ἀγαθοῦ. Diog. Laert.
vus (i).
29-2
452 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING A?
‘simply against those who seem to prosper,...against those
who seem to advance in excellence*' Again | Cicero, who |
proposed for clearness’ sake to call the active feeling invidentia, |
further cleared the definition by adding that the envied well. -
being is such as to be unhurtful to the envious*. d
But amid the falling esteem which the new ethics intro- Ὁ
duced for all qualities which tended to emphasize or even
pronounce that Zgo, which had hitherto been the world's.
centre, the idea that was in Zefus declined. At once in
S. Paul its workings take rank with those of enmity and con-
tention*. Jerome still notes the double use, the noble and
the base. But Cyprian had placed it wholly on the level of
Phthonos. He begins by coupling it with Liver and his first
words run thus, ' To be jealous (se/are) of the good you sec,
‘and to envy (invidere) better men is held by some a slight
‘and trivial crime*’ In reality it is one of the deadliest be-
cause one of the most secret of our temptations Its origin,
he proceeds, like that of Impatience’, is in the will of Satan.
It was the sight of the Image of God in Man which gave the
occasion. ‘He, throned in angel majesty, he well-pleasing
‘and dear to God, he was foremost to perish and to destroy...
‘He brake out into Jealousy (zelus) through malevolent Envy
‘(liver)...He snatched from man the grace of his imparted
immortality, and himself lost all that he once had been,’
Man had caught the infection; yet, as Cyprian seems to
mean, it was not in the first-fallen that its power appeared.
Tt was in the ‘primal hatreds of fresh brotherhood’; and
down from Abel to the delivery of the Christ ‘through envy;
Cyprian touches the great Jewish instances.
Ww nibil noceant invidenti; nam si things and persons /refrrm (e mij.
quis doleat ejus rebus secundis a quo — eurtuLome.../Plicitatem (c. 7).
ipse ladatur, non recte diciturinvidere.’ — ? De B. Pit. 13, 19.
ΙΧ. 2, SECRET OF CONDUCT—'DE Z5LO ET LIVORE! 453
Then come the evils of which, in the Church and in the
world, Jealousy is the ‘root’; and here there is again a trace of
classification. They are (1) hate and animosity, (2) avarice
and ambition, (3) irreligion, as overpowering the consider-
ation of the Fear of God, the School of Christ and the Day
of Judgment, (4) pride, (5) cruelty, perfidy, impatience,
discord, wrath, (6) Church Divisions’.
Lightly to sketch the remainder of the treatise:—It
dwells on the self-torment of envy, on its physical symptoms,
the difficulty of eradicating it, the self-contradictions of the
situations it creates’, its contrariety alike to the Lowliness
and to the Light of Christ’, and to the whole Imitation of
Him. Yet is it curable by one master-thought of His duly
learnt. He, when He taught that /east is greatest, ‘lopped
“emulation away, removing the material! cause of envy
“itself?
It outlines next the pattern of a Christian as drawn by
our Lord and Saint Paul, and this may well be quoted at
length on account of the perfect ideal which, in its ‘reality and
its healthfulness! Cyprian set before himself. It is scarcely
possible that a closer parallel could be found to the very
* Τὰ would seem from the above that
Cyprian, es 2 moralist, ww zriur ae the
most comprehensive term, twr (ankind)
or itt (mean) as its immediate de-
velopment, and rmufario nx a specific
activity, The following ate illustrations.
‘Satan's first emotion was sels then jn-
mida grassatur on earth, and man fjeure.
perituras,,.diabolum qui zelaf imitatur
(δ. 4). Ab duri nunquam diver ex-
ponitur.../wiius in majus incendium
Givoris ignibus imardeseit (e. 7). Zeli
tenebre, nubilum Asvrzr, ineddie cxci-
tas (co 11) Zelus is the oppesite of
of lenigmita: (c. 3)-
Again, (1 Cor. iii. 1—3) eher is found.
only in infants in Christ: accordingly it
js the ruin of fux and carifes, and js
‘the contrary of the imvamimis et πήρην
character,
? Vultus minax,.pablor in facie, in
labiis tremor... e 8.
? Peneverans malus e hominem
persequi ad Dei gratam pertinentem,
calamitas eme remedio est odime fe-
liem. € 9.
. τὸ dinalis ἔπος Que
sunt Christi gere quia dx σέ dier CArirtur
at (c. 19) the germ of the hymn Chrsite
qui dor ox δὲ dius
* Omnem causam et materiam. c. 10.
* Per quem (Cypr.)... Dominus wera
chsima intonuit ct salubria pracepit-
Aug. de Bapt. c. Doustt, rv. vilis (41).
454 EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN FEELING AND ENER!
character which Pontius and Augustine from ες τ |
and study describe as his own.
'We must remember by what name Christ calis Hee
people, by what title He designates His own flock. Sheep He
names them, that Christian innocence may match the inno~
cence of sheep. Lambs He calls them, that their simplicity of
mind may copy the lamb's simple nature. Why lurks a wolf -
under sheep's clothing? Why does one calling himself a
Christian falsely defame Christ's flock? To take upon one
Christ's name and not walk by Christ's way,—what is this bat
the counterfeiting of a Divine name, an abandonment of
the road of salvation? Forasmuch as Himself saith in His
teaching, “he cometh unto Life who keepeth the command=
ments,” and “he is wise that heareth His words and doeth
them," and “he too is called the chief doctor in the kingdom
of heaven who teacheth and so doeth,’—shewing that, what
the preacher preacheth well and serviceably shall then profit
the preacher, if what is delivered by his lips be fulfilled by
deeds following. But what did the Lord oftener instil into’
His disciples? what, among saving warnings and heavenly
precepts, hath He bidden us more observe and keep than that
“with the same love wherewith He loved His disciples, we
should also love one another"? Now how doth he keep either
the peace of the Lord or charity, who through the coming in
of jealousy can neither be a peacemaker, nor be in charity?
From this remonstrance he rises stil! in his delineation of
the unearthly spiritual idea of the Christian Life, of the
change actually wrought by the New Birth, and of our true
Sonship to God. He weaves together the Apostle's sayings
about the ‘mortifying of the deeds of the flesh} the ‘being
led by the Spirit,” and
them, ‘If we have uplifted our eyes from earth to heaven, and
* raised to things above and things Divine a heart full of God
* See p- 449, n. 3-
IX.2. SECRET OF CONDUCT—‘DE ZELO BT LIVORE! 455
‘and of Christ, let us be doing nothing but things worthy of
‘God and of Christ.’ Again he quotes ‘Risen with Christ...
* minded of things above...life hid with Christ in God...Christ
*our life one day to appear, and we with Him, and again he
argues, ‘We then, who in baptism died and have been buried
as to the fleshly sins of the old man, who by heavenly
regeneration have risen with Christ, think we and do we the
things that are Christ's! The Apostle tells of “the first man
of the earth and of the second man from heaven,” of our
“bearing the image of the one first, and afterwards of the
second.” That heavenly image we shall never wear waless we
present Christ's likeness in what we have already begun te be.
This it is to have changed what you once were and to have
begun to be what you were not; namely, that a Divine nativity
shines out in you, that a deifying education responds to your
Father God, that, in the honour and praise of /iving, the God
brightens in the man,,,Unto this brightness the Lord shapeth
and prepareth us, and the Son of God enwindeth this likeness
of God His Father into us' Then follow his favourite
passages in which the Sonship of the Christian is worked out.
"Then the questions—How to adapt in ourselves the world’s
necessary life to such a life as this in the world? How to set
about it, if nothing yet has been effected ?
Of his answers to these we have already spoken.
So in these two Papers Cyprian lets the world see what
he held to be at once the Secret of Conduct, the true way of
Church-Reform, and the Church’s Work for the Empire.
X.L1 MACRIANUS. 457
The new persecuting phase of Valerian's life was ascribed
to the influence of Macrian*. These were two remarkable men.
Valerian's purity and dignity of character had endeared him to.
Decius. At Decius' fantastic revival of the censorship,the senate,
even if primed to choose him, did it with such acclamations as
*Fattern of old times,’ ‘Censor all his life; ‘Censor from a boy,
Trebellius adds that he would have been elected imperator
by universal suffrage if such voting power had existed* The
Christian population honoured him. There were so many of
themselves safe in his household, that they affectionately
called it ‘a Church of God*/ In spite of a languid tempera-
ment he had been always admired for a characteristic insight
in selecting men for great posts‘. We have his own sketch
of Macrian whom he chose to fill the closest place to himself".
He was made Rationalis, Chancellor of the Imperial Ex-
chequer* Though delicate in health, of luxurious habits, and
perhaps crippled in person’, Macrian was a man of the highest
force of character and fertility of resource, of distinguished
soldiership and influence with the armies in several countries,
among them Africa, and of immense wealth. His martial
sons were patterns of discipline. Like other agnostics of
his time he was deeply impressed by the mysteries of the
Egyptian ' Magi, and is called by Dionysius their ' Archisyna-
gogus, which must at least mean an intimate and a patron*.
The family had long kept up a kind of cultus of Alexander
Zonaras xii. +4 says his name was
Macrinus and bis son's Macrianus. But
the coins with the old bearded head
have MACRIANUS as well a thous with
the young smooth face,
5. Trebell. Pollio, ed. Peter, Faleríami
dvo, c. 5.
* Dionys. ap. Euseb. wil. 16.
+ reb. Poll. Aelian. Nearly all
Rationibus or Rationalis
? ἀναπόρῳ τῷ σύματι, Dionysius ap.
Euweb. τῇ, 10, Zemaras xii, 34 says
Déregor wemlpure γῶν σανλῶν which per-
haps is not a mere version of Dionysius.
ashe hae independent information about
the family,
* Dionysius, ap. Euseb. vil. 19, says
he did not recognise any Divine πρόνοια
or spin. As Dionysins was his con
temporary and lived in Egypt he may
have known what be was saying ; which
is very unlike Gibbon's werion *As
the Great, wearing his portrait in their emb
embossing it on their plate. As there was at Ales
ceremonial cultus of Alexander, this perhaps may.
ἃ traditional connection with Egypt. There was
between the ‘Magi’ and the Christian Exoreists with the
anti-dzmoniac powers. They enforced the mee
tation of the deepening calamities of the Empire, and Macrian
prevailed on Valerian to be initiated in their mysteries — His -
later effect on the reputation of Gallienus himself is com~
pared rather stiltedly by Dionysius to that of a cloud hiding
for awhile the sun*,
Valerian's son Gallienus, or the conception of him, was a
terrible product of the times. A polished rhetorician, and |
elegant composer, devoted personally to Plotinus*, a scientific -
gardener withal, and a portent of heartless frivolity and sin.
His clever wieked face on the medals* is in utter.
his father's clean massive head. Yet he had early received
such impressions, strengthened possibly by a Christian mar
riage’, that the language of Dionysius about him, imme
on the disappearance of Macrian, seems more than
for his instant action in the repeal of Valerian's edict*.
The persecution thus begun by the virtuous and stayed by
a
“--
‘Maerian wasan enemy to the Christians,
they charged him with being à magi-
n.
Ὁ προόμενον in Dion. £p. ad Heru-
amin ap. Euseb. vii, 93, mesns
mo other betrayal of Valerian by
Maeríam than the projecting him on
the evil poliey which led to his fall.
"The mistake aries from mixing up
with it αὶ spurious sentence in 7
(ap. Euseb. vii. 10) has t
Syncellus quoting it has ὑπὸ
axdels. Ed. Dind. p. 719.
? Euseb. vii. 93.
Jars
καὶ ἐσέφθησαν Γαλιῆνόν τε ὁ aóronpdruy-
καὶ ἡ τούτου γυνὴ Σαλωνίνα, Porphyr.
Vit. Plot. xii.
4 Seeplateslvii. Grucberand Poole
Roman. Medaltions im British Aureum.
δ Sup. p. so n. Orosius (vii.
tributes his action to a sense of the
‘Divine judgment on Valerian. Aceon
“ing to Trebellins he was gratified ly the
Φιλοθεώτεροι..
ἰδ τι gie of the rest of the letter to
X ona THE ‘UPRISING OF NATIONS! 459
the infamous emperor fulfilled for Dionysius, by help of thc
key furnished in its exact apocalyptic duration of three and a
half years‘, the vision of the Dragon's wrath against the
Woman. To Optatus afterwards it seemed to be in connection
80 close with Decius' persecution that together they made up
the terrific ‘Lion’ Vision of Daniel".
It is not common to find so total a revulsion from a toler-
ant policy except towards the end of a career, or unless some
strong personal influences concur with some public difficulty.
We see both elements at work when without warning or
inquiry edict and rescript fell upon the Church.
The calamities which Macrian explained in his own way
were indeed appalling. In the first /riemaium of Valerian
(254—257) were felt the first death-pangs of the Empire.
This was *The Uprising of Nations’ as Zonaras says
truly,—raiders no more, but Peoples in irresistible advance,
The confederate Franks who had been first met some years
before by Aurelian at Mayence, and from there to the sca held
all north of the Rhine, had streamed across Gaul, heeding no
defeats, and were entering Spain. And now the whole vast
moat of the Empire formed by Rhine and Danube, with
Hadrian's wall and foss between them, then continued by the
Black Sea and the Don, was overleapt and overswum at every
point. The ‘All-men’ and the ' March-men" poured count-
lessly in, the former soon to reach Milan thirty thousand*
Hermammon, goes beyond official style, denth of Macrian. It is most natural
Tt is possible that Dionysius knew no-
thing of the personal life. fi remains,
1 believe, problematical how far the
scandalous chronicles of the emperors
represent more than brutal popular
imaginings.
! Dr Peters, p. 574, thinks Dionysius
is speaking only of the East and that
there was no persecution there until
the ‘second edict’ (Pthe reseript) in
AD, 588, and infers that therefore the
Eastern persecution lasted until the
i0 suppose that Dionysius counts
from the ‘first edict’ until Gallienus"
diet of toleration, middle of 257 to
cod of sío. Besides, being himself
banished to Kephton A. D. 27, be aight
Gallienus committed Italy itself, Illyricum, and T
were infiltrated with tribes which left ‘nothing woravaged” a9
they passed" —Borani, Gotthi, Carpi, Orugduni He went
himself to the protection of the Celtic tribes and found it |
expedient to marry a Teutonic chieftain's daughter’, and τὸς
surrender part of Pannonia, making the first Roman cession’
to Barbarism, να
About the middle of 257 Valerian marched to the East;
fore: Qus for the same enterprising otherwise unknown Borasi; hese |
(o p, Sole contribution to civilisation was the overthrow of the past, |
pus came from the Dniester to Byzantium in flat boats which
Sms they there exchanged for Bosporan vessels, and scaring all the
EX settlers of Pontus into the midlands and highlands struck |
E TU. straight for the rich city of Pityus. With all the resources of |
Gh. the great fort and harbour the bafiling of them for a single |
ei year was a great feat on the part of Successianus, Next year
ELE A they weretotake it, and to take the populous Trapezus, to their
Max. Dac- own amazement, and they were followed up by tribe after tribe
bent only on the annihilation of ‘all beauty and all greatness!
From the East the Persians or Parthians were not like
the Northerners driven on from behind, but with a spontaneous:
lust of rapine they swept Mesopotamia and Syria for captives:
and spoil.
Africa for all its Berber raids was the safest portion of the.
Roman world,
1 Zon i. 29, Zonar xl. 23, Sync.
(Dindorf) p. 71s. Whether the fortifi-
cation of Thermopylae was a fuct seems
to me questionable,
?. μέροι οὐδὲν τῆν “LraNus ὃ γῆν Te
δοε καταλιπόντες ἀδύωτον.. , Zoi pendia, Healy and.
5 Sup. p. goo, n. 7. Jieaidrrs, (1892) vol: pp “ὅν.
X ut CHRISTIANS AGAINST UNITY, 46
‘The whole Empire was girt as with an ever-contracting ring
of fire. No worse time of misery has ever hemmed in civilisa-
tion. The barbarian might at any moment be anywhere and
the plague was everywhere. Macrian then was not the one
persecutor. He was the voice and spirit of the Empire.
The essence of the Empire was unity. One army, one law,
one senate. The adoration of the majesty of the Emperor with
which no national or local worship interfered, was a necessity
which grew more vital as the danger from without grew
universal. The most tolerant of emperors could not deny
that in the midst of all there was an cver-multiplying power,
which defied the central unity. Another unity was growing
up and growing everywhere which, as it would not adore
Ciesar, could not, men thought, but make common cause
with the violators from without. The very usurpers were
less traitorous because their aim was at least to perpetuate in
themselves the imperial unity. Whenever any stir directed
imperial or popular attention to the Christians, there was
visible in them an anti-Roman and therefore anti-human
unity which was believed to compact itself by the darkest
and most compromising bonds.
1n every district it had its local chief about whom ad-
herents rallied. Everywhere, even when they obediently
abandoned their social evening meetings’, even when the old
theory of an ‘illicit religion’ could not be pressed consistently
any longer, still everywhere unexplained 'conventus' met ;
any individual who obeyed the magistrate by sacrificing to
the Majesty of Augustus evidently ceased to be a member of
their corporation ; and everywhere the cemeteries had a weird
fascination for them; especially if there lay in them agents
who had suffered the extreme penalty of the law.
Δ Alix, εἰ Traj. Epp. 9 Soli stato — quo secundum mandata tua hefeeriar
die ante lucem convenire.,runusque esse vetueram.’ See W. M. Ramaay,
soeundi ad capiendum cibum..quod ip- Church is Aman Hmpire, ch. x.
om facere dexiime post edictum ancam,
X13 THE EDICT. THE C(EMETERIES. 463
Emperors were ready to condone his past if he would conform,
he gave him a final injunction to convene no assemblies, and
to enter no ‘so-called ccemeteries'’ Meantime without a day's
respite for his malady he was to convey” himself to Kephron—
a wretched place, whose very name was new to him, on the
edge of the Desert. There his people were at first chased and
pelted, but out of the unpromising elements around them, with
the help of a confluence of visitors from Egypt, they formed a
fresh mission. He was then brought nearer Alexandria, to be
within reach if wanted again. This was to ' The Lands of Kol-
luthion, a disreputable place on the high road, worried with
caravans and freebooters—on which account Dionysius calls it
‘more Libyan’ than Kephron* But he was also more acces-
sible to friends from the city, who came and stayed with him.
They held regular ‘Synagogues’ there, as in other outlying
posts, and so opened yet another mission. These details and
contrasts fill up for us what happened about the same time to
Cyprian‘, though there is no mention of the month in which
Dionysius was sentenced.
On Kephron and The Lands of Kulfuthion.
‘These places, unnamed by geographers, may be too insignificant to
be ever identified, but points about them which can be made out from
Eusebius (λ΄. E. vii. 11) are of interest as touching life. A¢phron was
outside Mareotes, which in Roman times was a nome (Bóckh, C. 7. G.
MIL p. 316), and its chief place, Marea (Aferf), on the west of the lake.
Kephron was els rà μέρη τῆς Διβύηε. A poor village, so far from Alexandria.
that people who wanted to follow Dionysius (ἀδελφῶν ἑπομένων) bad to take
? Euseb. c: οὐδαμῶν δὲ ἐξέσται οὔτε exile at the appointed üme, Digera,
ἐμῖν οὔτε Nr marie συνόδουν ποι: 4, 19, 4,
εἶσθαι, ἢ dr τὰ καλούμενα κοιρητηρία ὀ᾽ Bit τὰ Κολλυθίωνοι.
εἰσιέναι. ln this phrase he powibly —— * tis curious that Eesebius vij. γ᾿
objects to the old-fashioned word, as
mach as to the fact that (ss he knew)
the cemeteries were to them much else.
penalty was death for not going to
Xx CYPRIAN AND PROCONSUL. 465
no.doubt conceded much carlier by usage. Cyprian was at
any rate heard in this less public way,—though probably with
open doors An undoubtedly genuine document of the Pro-
consular Acts reports the following spirited and mutually
somewhat sarcastic conversation which was held there’,
The Proconsul Aspasius Paternus opened thus:—
The most sacred Emperors Valerian and Gallien have done
me the honour to send me a Despatch in which they have
directed that persons not following the Roman religion must
conform* to the Roman ceremonies, I have in consequence
made enquiries as to how you cal! yourself*, What answer
have you to give me?
Cyprian the Bishop said :
lam a Christian, and a Bishop. I know no other Gods
but the one and true God who made heaven and carth, the
sea, and all that is in them. He is the God whom we Chris-
tians wholly serve. Him we supplicate night and day for
ourselves and for all men and for the safety of the Emperors
themselves.
Paternus. In this purpose then you persevere?
Cyprian, That a good purpose, formed in the knowledge
of God, should be altered is not possible.
Paternus (sneering at Cyprian’s last word), Well, will it
be ‘possible’ for you, in accordance with the directions* of
Valerian and Gallien, to take your departure as an exile to
the city of Curubis?
Cyprian did not condescend to meet the sneer with more
than one word—1 depart.
But Paternus wished to know something else.—They have
done me the honour of writing to me not about bishops only,
! Pontius does not report this, obser-
ving ‘aunt acta quie referunt," Fé, 11.
* Recogmoscere: prefix re does not at
this stage of language imply reiurm ἐφ,
ms the Oxford translator ba it.
3 De memine two; explained by the
E.
Cyprian. Inasmuch as our discipline fo
your legislation, they are unable to offer tl
you search for them, they are to be found.
Cyprian the Bishop replied, Do as you are directed
‘Thereupon Paternus sentenced the Blessed Bishop
to be ‘deported’ into exile’,
ship’. Provincial Governors could not inflict it
3 ‘Trajan in his Rescript to Pliny
Plin.ot Tra). Epp. 97) allows Christians.
to be delated (though not by anonymous
accusation) and punished. But Pliny
Panigyr. 34, 35 gives an account of Tra-
jan's vengeance on dela/orer in general.
Hadrian ad. Mimuc. Fundan, orders
delati to be punished if guilty, but calum-
ions dilatorss more severely. Otto,
Fustini mart. opera, wol, Y. p. 191—
Enseb.iv. 9.
M. Antoninus Pius, Ap. ad Commune
rie (fictitious, possibly. preserving a
fact), orders the delator to be punished
and thedelatusta be pardoned. M.An- ἢ
relins Ep. ad Senatum (also wpurigus) {εἰ
‘similarly and more strongly, Both are
Xr1z 467
direction from the Emperor. Paternus quoted the * precept"
of Valerian and Gallien for assigning him to Curubis, just
as we saw that /Emilian did for sending Dionysius to
Kephron* Deportation meant properly to an island. But,
as in the case of Relegation, isolated places might be named
as well as islands, and in Egypt an oasis, for the scene of
exile*.
Cyprian was allowed time for his arrangements and on Colonia
September 14° reached Curubis, an out-of-the-way, clean, T
pleasant, well-walled little coast town, about fifty miles from epu
Carthage*, in a lonely, not savage district, at the back of the Lien.
great eastward promontory of the Gulf of Tunis. It crowned pin,
a low hill, sunny and green, a quarter of an hour's walle from ^?
the shore’, A torrent beside it scooped out a little harbour,
since silted up’. In front glowed the island of Kossyra, set
in illimitable blue. Its amenities were completed by an
aqueduct, which still strides across the torrent bed.
The isolation however was great. The town was some
CYPRIAN AT CURURIS.
twenty miles from Clypea to its north and twelve from Neapolis
"libertatem retinet, et jure civili caret,
geatium veroutitar. Itaque emit, vendit,
locst, condueit, permutat, foruus exercet.
aliaque similia, but in the two former
passages Ulpian himaelf docs not say
as much, but «peaks of citizenship
only; and i do not ses how that
could be reconciled with Cyprian’s
condition, which is an excellent case,
He while in *¢portatis" largely relieved
other sufferers (Ay. 775 78, 79), and by.
onter he retumed to his own Zforri,
which had therefore not been confiscated
luring his year of absence. elu free. $i
Font. Vit. 13. In his dream also, Pont.
Vit. 13, be asks leave ‘res mess legi-
tima ordinatione disponere Cyprian's
cwn expresion in Aj. 76, which is
likely to be as technically precise ax
the Acta, is "relegatum."
! τοῦτον γὰρ τὸν rivor ἐξελεξάμηρ ἐκ
τῦν κελεύφεωε τῶν σεβαστῶν ἡμῶν, Euseb.
vias
? Sed et im eax partes provincin,
* One does not know where Dr
Veters thinks it was; ‘er hatte mur
Rain xs Kasten Dicher unge-
ihr vierzehn Tage gebraucht," p. 577:
‘Two very short days at the mom
sulüced. Ch infr. p. 479, note 3-
? Tissot, vol. τις μι 134
© Sir Grenville Temple, vol. n. ps 13:
7 The Bishops, Ap. r7. t, call jt *in.
divesto loco" for all its pleasantness.
30—a
X12. CYPRIAN'S DREAM, 459
His love of conversation was strong as ever. He wished he
might die talking—talking of God‘
One conversation Pontius gives word for word. And a
singular story it is—the authentic narrative of one of those
visions which he himself regarded, and not unnaturally, with
deep reverence,
It is not surprising that on the first night on which he
slept in Curubis he dreamt about the Proconsul.
‘The day we stopped at the place of banishment, before I
went fast asleep there stood before me a young man of
immensely superhuman stature, He led me as if to the Pra-
torium*,and I thought I was brought up to the Tribunal where
sate the Proconsul. As soon as he looked up at me, he at once
began to note down on his tablet some sentence of which I
knew nothing, for he had not asked me anything in the usual
way ofenquiry. But the young man who stood behind him read
with great attention whatever it was that was entered there.
And as he could not speak with me from where he was, he sct
forth by significant gestures what was going on in the way of
writing upon that said tablet. He opened out his hand quite flat
like a broadsword blade*, and imitated the stroke given in an
ordinary execution,
derstand as well as with the clearest speech.
arn et commune nomen est [cum paren-
tibus]: nos et parentes ipsos, si contra.
Dominum suaserimt, abhoremus H.
‘The reading & interesting. Some dull
African, not catching the construction of
the former clause and thinking that ‘et
parente» ipsos required a previous men-
tion of parents, imeried ewm farenier
after eit, in bold native syntax, which
is the reading of all the sis. Α duller
than he amended it into cum farenziZus.
CL. De montibus Sine ef Sion, c. 8 *com
imperatorem et regem sam, c. 'tabu-
lam cum nomen regis Jadacorum."
Yontivs in recalling his organization.
He expressed what he meant me to un-
I understood it
to metthe lagos decision marly
on Cyprian's zeal ‘pro citatis salute"
and τὰ the gocd of "respublica! and
Neige
2 The site of the Proetorium at Car-
X13 THE NUMIDIAN BISHOP-CONFESSORS. 47
terrors were applied to the layfolk', Cyprian must have felt
much sorrow—even if it was an exultant sorrow—over the
miseries and courage of brethren upon whom he had drawn
so much attention both by his Councils and by his constant
magnifying of their office.
3. Numidian Bishop-Confessors,
Whether others were exiled at the same time, or what
happened to the Presbyters for whom Paternus asked, we
have no record*. If it was difficult to be severe when the
Bishop of Carthage had fared so differently at his hands
from even the Bishop of Alexandria, under the Priefect of
Egypt, the lenity was made up for to the extreme when the
Province after the Proconsul’s death fell under a Deputy.
And the President of Numidia had no such scrupl
Nine* of the thirty-one Numidian bishops who had sat in
3 Rulnart, Passio SS. μηρόν et Ma-
riani.., x. This document, written by
‘the friend who received these martyr»
with others in his villa near Cirta, where
their commemorative inscription is still
on the well-known rock, and the Passion.
of Montanas and Lucius and other
Clergy of Carthage, partly written by
themselves just after Cyprian's death,
are fall of points of greatest interest.
Ruinart, Züsrio SS, Afowiawi, Lect ef
all. Mine Afr.
? As Theegenes of Hippo was
martyred, as well as Successus of Abbir
germaniciana and Paulus of Obba, after
Cyprian (ep. Aug. Serm. 273, and
Paire Mentani xii. with Sell, Epp
14 16, 47 and EAA 76, Bo), they had
mest likely been exiled previously.
Thess identifications may not amount
* * Nemmiano, TA, Luo, alui
Felici, Litteo, Poliano, Victori, Luderi,
Dativo,’ ἄς., Ef 76, cf. δρῥ. Ti
38.79. These nine confessor
‘were, I think, probably ali from Numi«
dian see Nemosian of Thubung,
Litteus of Gemellx, Polianus of Mileou,
lader of Midili and Dativus of Vado
‘certainly were. Mesides these, two were
named Felix, one Lucius and one Victor.
Of seven named Felix in the Council two.
had Numidian sem, Bagai and Bamac-
core, Two Lucii attended it, and one
of these had the Numidian see of Castra.
Galbw. There were two Victory one
‘of whom was bishop of Octavu(sl, and.
there uasa see of that name (or Octava)
in Numidia, where was the massacre by
Circumeellions (Optatus Wi c. 4h
a» well as an Octavum or Octavium.
in the Byencene. Mark also that Felix
Jader and Polianus in 5p. τὸ snd
greeting to Eutychianus who was ἃ
Numidian, A. το. The writers of
XL 3. THE NUMIDIAN BISHOP-CONPESSORS, 473
hair clipt off, sleeping on the ground. Dragged too from the
bright towns elsewhere described, the cleanly Romans sadly
missed their baths*
‘They were somewhat more than kept alive by the liber-
ality of Cyprian, in his banishment, and of his lay-friend
Quirinus for whom he compiled and classified the Testineonta.
The sub-deacon Herennianus*, with three acolytes, Lucan,
Maximus and Amantius, conveyed his letter and distributed
the help. They brought back answers from three separated
groups of confessor. One, the seventy-eighth, is dated from
the mine of Sigus about five-and-twenty miles south-south-
east of Cirta, in Numidia. The place is well known though
it was never important, but the mines have not yet been
rediscovered'.
The lessons of the former persecution seem not to have.
been lost. There is no lament as yet over lapsed brethren,
though here at least the persecution was general‘,
Parts of Cyprian's letter to them are less happy than any-
thing he has written since the high-flown language addressed
to the Decian martyrs. Humour seems to fail him when he
finds himself amid practical pathos. It surely was grim com-
fort in the stocks to have their suffering feet apostrophized,
to be bidden forget the labour of extracting silver or gold
ores because they were themselves vessels of silver and gold,
and so were at home in a gold mine. But once free of such
fashionable quips, he is himself in his contrasts of ‘captive
body and kingly heart,’ the *body of this humiliation and the
? A characteristic touch, KA 76.2, — monuments which probably ase not
2 ER 77. go The same no doubt very ancient. amm. circ. de Constien-
through whom a year later Lucian
sepplies the Carthaginian prisoners
with food, Parr, Montan. ix.
* Respublica Siguitanorum, d. Zi-
genieh; Playfair, p. 113, near Bord
ben Zeki. C. Δ Z. VM. E. p. 585.
Several roads met there, it has yielded
many inscriptions, and bas megalithic
474 THE PERSECUTION OF VALERIAN. -
body of His brightness’ the impossibility of b
mind, or spoiling the shrines of the Spirit. Αἱ
nobler than the breadth with which he bids
moved at their inability to ‘offer and celebrate
of God,’ seeing that in their own persons they
' His holy immaculate victims."
Their grateful answers are in a simple strain
they echo his. They feel his intense sympathy, they value —
his exposition of * hidden sacraments, they tell him how they —
had been fortified for their own hearing before the Preses,
by reading the Acta of his trial and behaviour before the
Proconsul'. At present they know him to be ‘in a desert —
place in exile*! v
4 ‘OF ENCOURAGEMENT TO CONFESSORSHIP."
One occupation of the forced leisure of Curubis, T think,
we may trace with fair certainty. The Book nonly
called OF ENCOURAGEMENT TO CONFESSORSHIP', but ori-
ginally TO FORTUNATUS, has been alrcady considered im.
its place in Cyprian's philosophy of life’ As to its form it
will be remembered that he calls it ‘no treatise but material
for treating.’ It is to meet the wants of teachers. Tt is a
Manual to sustain faith and fortitude in persecution—as in
placid times there are Manuals of Communion. He calls
it a Compendium of Capitula, passages arranged under Titudi.
These ‘ Titles’ are most systematic, but the handling of them.
is not uniform nor compact. At first the texts are neatly
and briefly woven together by a clever thread of connection
and comment, But the comments grow ‘longer and more
Pammackium c. 19, but in the older
ditions is attributed to Hilary by am
5 De EXWoRtarions, MAanryan odd traceable blunder,
ike Tertullian's De achortatione casti- — * Sup. €, VI. li. p. 464.
fati, Tuis quoted by Jerome, Aj. 48 ad
Xb 4, 5. “DE EXHORTATIONE MARTYRIL' 475
diffuse and pass into argument and rhetoric, until on the
Maccabees, we have almost a sermon with a prefatory note
on the number * Seven,’
It contains no single expression which implies that the
storm of persecution had burst. But the atmosphere through-
out is charged with the feeling that persecution is imminent
and certain’, The false certificates of having sacrificed, /ibe/lr,
are spoken of in the way of warning, without mention of
people having accepted or refused them’, These conditions
together seem to fit only the time after the first edict of
Valerian when, after a long peace, the persecution which had
begun with the bishops, could not be expected to confine
itself to them ; when there was need of a vigorous and sub-
stantial monition, but no opportunity for a very finished one.
Again, this is the last-mentioned subject of Cyprian's pen in
the quasi-catalogue of Pontius®.
Accordingly, we attribute this ‘Compendium’ to the
respite of Curubis with its daily increasing danger.
5. Rome—Accession of XvsTUS and his immunity.
On August the 2nd Stephanus had died at Rome, after the Aag. s,
Edict was out; a circumstance which fell in with the later ^^ 7
notion that he was martyred’. On the 31st, the day after Aug. μι.
Cyprian's trial at Carthage, he was succeeded by XYSTUS'.
3 Ad Fortuna. Praf.c. 4. "TheChurch — ? Libelli, ad Fiiun. c. 11-
is an army in camp before battle. Cf. * Pontil Fi. c. 6.
co 1 imenmil, e. 3 properare. 4 "The notion has indeed come down
‘The ad Demetriamam, which bas been — 90 late as to possess Mgr. Freppel, pp-
edited im juxtaposition with the ad — 473, 477. and Dr Peters, p. 503
Fortunatum, was written under aging — * Aug. gr. In Aeta Sizplani (Bol
persecution (ad Demetr. 12, 13). The — land) the date given is viili. Kal. Sept,
“recent lesson" of defeat (ad D. c. 17)
fits the catastrophe of Deelus, but not
of Valerian whose overthrow wns fol-
lowed by the cessation οἱ persecution,
X.1.5. ACCESSION OF XYSTUS AND HIS IMMUNITY. 477
confinement Xystus was unmolested at Rome, is more than
we know. Concealment was then a part of church life. Can
the magistracy have lain so long under the impression that,
through terror of the law whose appearance coincided so
nearly with Stephen's death, the See remained unfilled as it
had done for a longer interval under similar circumstances
after Fabian's death? It is difficult to think that Gallienus
had sufficient influence in Macrian's presence to keep the
edict so long suspended, Yet when he afterwards repealed
Valerian's laws we observe that he took credit for some
previous protection of the Church’, However that may be
Xystus was untouched, and even at Rome not inactive, as we
shall sce, until a new order was fulminated.
IL t. THE RESCRIPT.
Fragments of two very different imperial documents be-
longing to the year 258 are in our hands, One was drawn at
Byzantium, the other is generally, it may be groundlessly,
said to have been issued on the same occasion.
The year before Valerian had promised to make Aurelian
and Ulpius Crinitus consuls on May 22, in the room of himself
and Gallien his son. At a brilliant review which he held at 4.5. 468.
Byzantium he did make Aurelian consul, addressing him in ^
the great Therme in a fulsome yet deserved panegyric, and Mrd
conferring on him in the presence of his troops and the cux ‘Powe
' Palatine Staff* decorations quadrupled and quintupled, to
match the allowances previously assigned him to enable him
a8 a poor man to support the consular burdens For Ulpius.
41 have pointed this out, p. o4, 48. So 4o vague dewdyoaorey.] An
nae intermediate sense of the word offcines
* Offciume Patasinwe, ΕἸ, Vopcus — occurs ln Pliny A99. i sy 44, 'me con-
Avreliamurc. 13. [OrganizedbyHaérien, — venitin praetoris edicio "4.2. *office, δας.
Aurel. Viet. Apit.xiv. Ap. Serr. By. nes room)! Cl def, Maximiliani M.
τάξαι βασιλική, Theopban. Contin. iii, — c. i. (Ruinart).
Xanga THE RESCRIPT. 479
Designate of Egypt, Murrentius Mauricius, and next below
him Macius Brundisinus, Praefect of the Corn-Supply (Au-
nona) of the East.
It has been usually concluded that this Court at Byzan-
tium had something to do with altering the character and
increasing the severity of the persecution’, Why, is hard to
see. This was not business which concerned a great Review.
The Emperors own Rescript could equally well emanate at
any point of his marches or halts. It was not till a week
after the 6th of August that Cyprian, who had people at
Rome on the watch for information, was able to learn that a
new and cruel Reseript had arrived there and had instantly
been put in force’. Certainly then if the Byzantine pageant
was held on May 22, we cannot suppose that a decree
then made did not reach Rome until well on in August*.
Whether the date is good or not for the former event,
the earliest date which we could allow for the dispatch of
the Rescript by the Emperor would be the first half of
July.
‘The process would be this. Something happens at Rome,
or the idea is somehow motived there that the Edict is not
acting strongly enough to reform the Christians. A request
is moved in the Senate and sent to the Emperor, wherever he
Brundisium and the Vie Lavicans ay
1223 of 1233 Roman miles (by Via Pre
Ὁ Pearson, Amal Cpr. A.D, 258, ive
? He obtained the information while
the document itself was yet only on its
way to Africa, qaz literar catidie spera-
mus venire, Ep. Bo. 1.
? KL. Friedlaender, Darztellunges.
aur der Sittengeschichte Roms, lapi.
1881, vol. ria, pp« £76 199 glves Instances
of extraordinary travelling at the rate
of 190 miles or more a day for six and
eight days, Travellers who put up for
the nights travelled from 3o to 36 miles
aday. If we count the distance from
Byzantium to Rome by Dyrrhachium,
nestina 1240 or t3gt}, according τὸ the
dtimararium Antonini, that gives 17 or
18 days’ journey at 70 miles aday, which
it not excessive for the transmission af
posts as compared with travelling, A
rescript which reached Rome on Aug. 4
need not have left Byzantium before July.
18 oF 19.
Despatches were carried. by. the le-
gionary specedatores, *hemeniromos
vocant Grawi ingens die tno curm
emetientes spatium, Livy xxxi, 24.
Xone αν THE RESCRIPT.
or lower officials of the Revenue, illustrates the kind of em-
ployments into which, as free from idolatrous taint, the
Christians crowded, Cyprian notes the inclusion of the
whole body of the clergy’.
But his intelligence comprised more fearful news. The
Prefects in the city* had without a moment's pause begun
the confiscations and the executions’. Not only so, Xystus*
himself had on Sunday the sixth instant been found in the
forbidden ‘cemetery’ and then and there put to death along
with four out of the seven Deacons of Rome.
2. Rome—The exclusion from the Cemeteries.
Archeology has few episodes able to compare for unex-
pected interest with the light and confirmation it throws upon
and receives from Cyprian's direct news about the Rescript.
This we shall see presently with the assistance of De Rossi
as to the martyrdom and memorials of Xystus.
But first there are two points on which we may ourselves
look for some elucidation from facts, Why was the entrance
of Cemeterics—areas hitherto secured by legal rights—made
capital? It was not merely to stop their assembling for
worship. They had many Basilica and other Fabrice, as
‘opportunities of enriching themselves
eppresively and were under checks,
eg. they might not, while they held
office, be admitted to the rank of per-
foctissimatus, ducena, centena, egregia-
tus, but might if they retired with spot-
Jess character; «o Constantine enacts,
Gad. Theor, 10, 7. Vi ef. 10, Tr Me
* Bp, So. 1, "universi clerici sub detu.
agonis constitati.”
7 ΔΙ. * Pesefeeti in urbe.’ Dsuppose. ^
"prefectus wrbauus! and & ἡ
petorio Under Augustus, who in-
Y.
stituted the latter office, there were two.
As its civil importance grew vast, there
were from time to time three, and at
last four. There was ware to be at Jeast
onc at home, while Valerian had one in.
attendance so long a time and so far
away.
? The more ^ii qui sibl. oblati fueriat
animadvertantur,' Eg. So. t, looks as if
‘enquiry were not too minute,
**Xistue” ia 4p. Bo, and Pontius
Vit. a (Hartel).
3t
we know from the history of Fabian.
access of severity in the Rescript?
Caius (whom in an carly essay D
of Zephyrinus A.D. 199—217.
The same critic observed much later that the two.
together ' appear in connection with the Roman Ch
‘earliest document emanating from, as well as in
‘document addressed to, the Roman Church after th
The historic certainty of their martyrdom there,
identity of their relics is a non-Cyprianic question
forbear to judge. Until more is known two o
clusions will be maintained, mainly upon religious
tions remote from the matter in hand. Should the fi
grow clearer, onc of the two parties will discover that r
opinion has no place in the discussion. There is how
doubt that at that early period the remains of 5. P
believed to be on the Aurelian Way and those of S.
the Ostian.
There is no more doubt that shortly afterwards tl
believed to be together in the 'Catacombs*, under
S. Sebastian, three miles along the Appian Way, h
burg Itinerary in the first half of the seventh century
«98,
* Clem. Rom. ad Corinth. vo, ignit. course indeclinable and ite
ad Rom. dw. see Lightfoot's note om falscly formed. Gregory, Zip
the isiter,ponees. 7 indict. si. go, correctly +n,
* Caracumbas, properly two words, — dicitur Cara Curmbas!
ata cumbar, it.*at the sleeping places,
X. πὶ 2. 88 PETER AND PAUL MOVED TO CATACUMBAS. 483
rather later Epitome, ‘Of the places of the Holy Martyrs’
speak of S. Sebastian’s', ie the Catacombs, as the place
where the two Apostles rested forty years—a symbolic date,
There were eccentric stories to account for this fact.
Eastern Christians had tried shortly after the martyrdoms to
convey the bodies to Palestine, had been arrested by God
and man, and had left them here on the way*, Long after
they had been replaced in or near their first homes Gregory
the Great refused relics from them to the Empress Constan-
tina on the plea of other phenomena and particularly of these
stories, But they are attempts to account for the relics having
certainly been there, when both before and after they were
elsewhere.
Another curious early attempt to decipher what hap-
pened is the account in the Vite Paparum of the Felician
Catalogue’, that Cornelius took the bodies from the ‘Cata-
combs; and that Lucina (a standing name of Christian ladies
in legends) restored S. Paul to the Ostian Way, while Cor-
nelius laid S. Peter once more on the Vatican. This is a
great anachronism, but it shews that it was well known that
there was a time when they rested in the ‘Catacombs.’
Damasus(366—384) adorned the half-underground chamber
called Platonia* under the apse of S. Sebastian. It is irregular
in shape, and has a stone settle. In the middle of it is a pit
Pewii, ap. Fabricium Cod. Apscr. NT.
iii. p.653. Florentini, eturtiur Mare
pret, (Lace, 1668), p. ttr.
* -D- $30) — Lipsius, e cit. p.
? So also William of Malmesburyin the
1ith century ; Rossi, Koma Sisterrames
Cristisms, 1. pp. 180—1. L. Duchesne,
iler Pontifical, t. civ—evii, thinks tlie
40 years might represent from A«U. 258
to soon after Constantine sdefest of Max«
entius, 313. The apocryphal Acts of
Peterand Paul and the Pseudo- Marcellus.
give a year and seven months for the
time during which the new tombs were
preparing in their fist resting-places,
? Acta Petri et Pauli, Tischendorf,
Acla A post. afeeryphs, τι, pp Y, 39
Pocudo-Mascellus, de Actibus Petri of
mam (platoniam) ipsam vbi jacuerunt
corpora sancta versibus exomavit,'_.
Duchesne, és. ontife vol. t. p. 213.
τ Rivestimenti di lastre marmoree." “Pee
tenia, cio grande Lastra marmore;
Rosi, Rowe. Sw. 1, pp. 32, 53»
31—2
X. fl. 2, $$. PETER AND PAUL MOVED TO CATACUMBAS. 485
the Three Roads being the Aurelian and the Ostian, where
they suffered, and the Appian which passes Catacumbas,
And now we come to the interesting link which rivets
these facts to our story.
One of those entries in the Kalendar called Hicronymian,
which exhibit the Use of Rome in the fourth century, is this:
‘On the twenty-ninth of June at Rome,
Binhday of the Holy Apowles Peter and Paul,
of Peter on the Vatican the Aurelian Way,
but of Paul on the Ostian Way,
‘of both in Catscumbas j
‘they suffered under Nero,
Nessus and Tuscos being Consuls’.
The day seems at first as if it were that of their joint
martyrdom. But in the early mentions of their deaths no
day is named, much less the same day for both, It then
suggests itself at once that it is the day of a Deposition,
afterwards supposed to be the day of martyrdom. The
Depositio Martirum of AD, 354 registers the day correctly
as a Deposition; though the scribe, probably thinking that
Catacumbas applicd to the Vatican, and knowing that now
again 5, Paul was on the Ostian Way, has confused the
entry by inserting the word Ostense*. The Consulship named
shews that it could have nothing to do with the deaths.
But it is the very year 258 A.D, when the severe Rescript
appeared following the Edict about the Cemeteries. We
may be tolerably sure then that June 29, A.D. 258, was the
4 "iral jal. Romae natale sanetorum
apowolorum Petri et Pauli: Petri in
Vaticano via Aurelia: Panli vero in via
Ostensi s wtrisque in Catacumbes +
Passi sub Nerone, Bawo et Tuxco con-
salitus,’ Duchesne, Lit. ome. 1. p. cv.
? an kl. Tul, Petri in Catxcumbos et
Fall aioe Tes nene
rian Catalogue Defonitío. martirw
Mommsen's Über dew mctu
vom fahre 354 (Abhandl, d. philolog.-
ist. Classe, Kénigl. Sàchsisch. Gesell-
ach. d. Wissenschaften Leipz i880.
P. 632). called Léderiaw, Filealian or
Bwcheriam. from the
Pope who ordered it, the compiler and
the first editor, ica] een ἃ
sius also) Chvewolapie der Rimischew
Bischife (1859); and the List of Popes is
revised from all the published material
by Bp. Lightfoot, Apestt, Fathers, past 1.
S. Clement of Rome, b Pr 208 29
It scarcely is venturing into too minute a coin
we observe, that, if a fortnight sufficed, as it
the government couriers to transmit dispatches between
and Byzantium, there was a good margin of time
June 29 and August 6 to communicate to Valerian, even if
he were further afield, what the Christians were about, and to
receive his reply. The removal from their place of execution
of the remains of notorious leaders of a dangerous section,
which it was always necessary to suspect and impossible to
understand, was probably noted, and invested, as it would be
in Europe to-day, with political significance. The graves of
those criminal Jewish agitators had not ceased to be visited,
and now the modern leaders were somehow turning the old
names to account. Xystus in this same year translated to
the Cemetery of Callistus the Virgin Lucilla and her father
Nemesius the Deacon, who had been laid on the Via Latina
by Stephen in 257’. It is tempting to think that the Emperor
may have been induced to sharpen his decree by tidings of
the translation, It could not be unknown that the ‘trophies’
and the cemeteries were tampered with by the Christians
after they had been warned off from places dear and long
legally secured to them. ‘You know even the days of our
‘mectings,’ says Tertullian’, ‘and so we are laid wait for and
‘apprehended and in these actual secret congregations we are
‘arrested.’
The whole proceeding wears the aspect of precaution,
There was no knowing what violence might be at hand. And
if it could be shewn that the blocking up of passages, the
breaking away of staircases, the opening of secret galleries out
into the sandpits, which are such marked facts in the hi:
of the cemeteries, belonged partly to the days of Valerian's
1j. OH. Parker, Archaeol. of Rome, 5 Ad Natione, le 1. C. 7.
vol. xit, The Catacomhi, p. 73.
X11 3. UNDER XVSTUS.
persecution, as well as to those of Diocletian, there would be
little or no doubt of the meaning of that proceeding,
However this may be we cannot doubt that the Bishop
of Rome would have his share in directing the removal of
the sacred forms and any other measures of precaution or
reverence. And as legislation about cemeteries could no-
where apply to anything like the extent that it did at Rome,
we may feel sure that such legislation had its origin in
Roman difficulties.
3. Memorials of Xystus and his Martyrdom,
We have learnt, from Cyprian’s own letter, that Xystus
was martyred in a cemetery on the sixth of August’, and
with him four* (of the seven) Deacons of Rome.
There is no uncertainty now as to the place of this tragedy.
De Rossi's researches, and what he himself calls his ‘extended
and complicated comment, a masterpiece of knowledge,
insight and patience, have cleared up endless difficulties",
r. The earliest list of Roman cemeteries calls that of
Callistus * Caemeterium Callisti ad S. Xystume Via Appia*"
There still stands above ground a small chapel, originally
a Schola, in plan a square, with large apses on three sides ;
its front, open antiently like an exhedra, to the Via * Appia-
Pamele, Fell,
Ὁ Xystus καὶ εἰ months 12 (26) days,
Lipa, of cit. p.atg. Eusebius, Z7. 2.
vii. 27 has (in the same error noticed
already in other initances) sudgned
him ax many year. So in vii. ἐφ he
seems to speak of bim as overliving the
‘edict of restoration. Another error is
repented from him by Jerome, who
assignselght years to Xystus. (Zmtergref.
Chronic. Fuse. ad Ann. D. ag]
3 Bp. So 1. Quartus for quattuor,
unwarrantable alteration adopted by
* The following are the chief refer-
ences to De Rosi, oma Setterranca
Critliama * vol. 1. p. 447, Xystus' chapel
in Cemetery of Prsetextatus ; wol. 11. p» 45
8. Sistus and S, Cecilia’; wol. 11. p. 20,
Pagan and Christian Rowse, ps 127.
* m. Sot. νοὶ, τι. p. 6
times it has been called the Church of S. )
orof both. Pilgrims halt at it before d
two flights of steps which lead to the crypt of S
which the popes of the third century were usually buri
to that of S. Cecilia. Xystus became the chief and
sanctity of this crypt. The plaster over the door of tl
is scored with invocations of ‘Sustus,’ graffiti‘ so ei
they are mutilated by the changes made by Dam 1
fourth century, although Celerinus and Lucianus in the be
ginning of our story would, with all their exaggerations
martyrs, have revolted from them. Within it was placed
very chair in which he was teaching when he was 5
For the whole cemetery Damasus wrote an inscription
in his best hexameters, and cut it on marble in this :
where De Rossi found almost the whole in above 100 |
ments and with surprising skill refitted them together |
the appearance of some delicate πεῖ",
They are to this effect :
Here closely lie 2 crowd of Holy ones;
The aweful graves their sacred. Bodies keep
Heaven's palace hath caught up the soaring souls
4 The Crow-road which connects the — Roma, 1895, p. tba.
Appla and Ardeatina (scc map) is so —— * Léberian Catalogue,
called by De Rowi. The names of cif, p. 638: Lipsius af. off, p. 3p.
these roads are ax yet matter of con- Pe wen ear Male a
troversy. Sign. Lanciani names, as.
μανία lately thrown some light on the — ordinario dei papi πεῖ secolo 3."
question, the memoirs by Christian 4 *Sanle Suste in mente
Huelsan, sulla ports Ardestina in Mit- o
ie. dom Su ie AN
del Commis. Arch. comunale di — * Aem. Soft τς tiv. th
many Peere—wbo at
Here lies the Priest who lived ἃ lengthened Peace,
Here the Confessor Saints whom Grecia sent,
Here Youths, old mes yet boys, and grandsons pare
Who willed to keep their Virgin Modesty.
Here would 1 Damasus have laid my limbs
But feared to vex the ashes of the Just,
This epigram itself witnesses to the pre-eminent honour
of Xystus*, as does likewise the inscription placed above the
Chair by Damasus, of which also minute fragments were
found.
Its purport was as follows:
What time the sword pierced through the Mother's heart,
Set here as Pilot I taught heaven's deceees.
Sudden they came and took me as I sate.
The peoples gave their necks to the soldiery,
‘The Eider marked one who would fain have smateh'd
Mis palm) but first he offered his own head,
Not suffering savagery to strike at large.
Christ with Mis bounteous gifts of life
"The Shephent's wage, and folds the flock Himbelf*
4 Hie congesta. jacet quove ai turba piorum.
Corpora sanctorum retient. veneranda. sepulcra.
Sublimes animas rapuit sibi regia exll
Hic comites Xywi portant qui ex hoste teopoca.
Hic numerus procerum servat qui altaria. Christi
Hic positus longs vixit qui in pace sacerdos
Mie confessores sancti quos Grecia. misit
Hic juvenes puerique senes castique nepotes.
Quis mage virgineam placuit retinere pudorem.
Hic fateor Dammsus volui mes condere membra
Sed cineres timni sanctos vexare plorum.
"Text preserved in Syoge Zwromenzir, Rome, 11. pp» 66, 108- View of Crypt
33. and Corp. Lawreshemensis Syliege, οἵ S. Xystus, om, Sot. 11, tav, te
4. 43, ap. Rossi, Jnscr, Chr. Urbs
? He is said to be the only Roman marys admitted into the Syrisc Kalendar.
? Tempore quo gindins seeuit pia viscera matris
Hic ponitus Rector cxlestin juwa docebam
Adveniant subito rapiunt qui forte sedentem,
Way a little further south, and towards
of Ceres, now St Urban's Church, was
a grafite of a Cathedra, another of a Doctor
Cathedra with a hearer at his feet. Here is seen
Vincentius, Stephanus, also that the Deacons were
on vit id. Au^, while Xystus was laid with his
Militibus missis populi tune colla dedere;
Mox sibi cognovit senior quis tollere vellet.
Se inate iier
ae
X. 3. MEMORIALS OF XYSTUS. 491
in the Cemetery of Callistus’, just across the road. His Chair
went with him.
Over two of the Deacons Damasus wrote for the Cemetery
of Privtextatus
Comrades and Servers of the unconquered Cross
They followed their pore Paster’s Faith and Works.
Damasus to Felicissimus and Agapinus®,
A dialogue of some dramatic power with some shreds
of authenticity is recited by Ambrose, as having been held
with Laurentius*, another Deacon, by Xystus on his way to
execution.
This story seems at first sight irreconcilable with the ac-
count of his beheading in the Chair, But we cannot set aside
the observation of De Rossi‘ that it is impossible that seven
Romans should have been simply murdered without trial by
a gang of soldiers; that they must have been taken before
the judge, and may have been sent back to the place where
they were apprehended as law-breakers to be put to death”
Ὁ +Sepaltus est in eymiterio Calesi — Duchesne, ZA. Fw 1. pp. 68, 9 (£a. first
via Appia mam v1 diaconi ejos in eymi- — edition of Z. P. ax represented in Feli-
tirio Praetextati via Appia vi id. Aug.’ — cian abridgment).
* Hi crucis invictse comites pariterque ministri
Rectoris sancti meritumque fidemque secuti.
Felicissimo et Agnpito Damasus,
Romi, δανεγν Ch. n. p. 66. This
epigram probably (as Lipsins suggests,
‘op. cit, p. 33) gave birth to the line of
legends in which Xystus himself is craci-
fied. Ambros, de Qf. Ministrorum, 1 xli.
“Ambrosian” Hymn ap. H. A- Daniel,
Thes Hote xo te Prudent, Ἀέρα.
di. ara.
?. Lipsius regards Laurence δα histori-
cal, though archidiscowur (not in Am-
‘brose) is an anachronism, of. cif. p. 120%
‘The fine story of Laurence, with the
circle of heroes who gathered round it,
obliterated after a time the recollec-
tion that the Chair belonged to Xystus,
‘whose name was not mentioned in the
epigram of Damasus placed over it.
Tt was transferred with the story of a
Pope's martyntom in it, enriched by the
account of blood shed over it, to Stephen
(Mommsen, Crem, m. FaAre 354, of cit.
pe 6}, 1π| nen. Afpuoter Stefani ἐμ
Calisti. The Chair was bestowed by
Innocent XII. on Cosmo TII. and taken
to Pisa (Merenda, Damezur, p- 1}.
5 RLS. te pps 91, 92.
? Lib. Pontif. (t ed.), Duchesne, p.
69, "truncati sant spite" —eolemn Roman.
CHAPTER XI.
THE BIRTHDAY,
Quod nowen sic freyuemiat Bevtesia id ext Natalee, wt Natales vocdd pretivear
Martyrum. marie, AUG. Sem. 340, €. αν
Ir was (as we have seen) Cyprian himself who with his
constant promptitude and his official skill secured probably
the very first news which reached Africa. The Rescript,
accompanied by an imperial circular addressed to Governors
of Provinces, was still on its way when he sent the intelli-
gence of its approach to Successus to be circulated, Successus
of Abbir Germaniciana, near Curubis, was one of the Senior
Bishops In a few months he was to follow Cyprian to
martyrdom’. His letter to Successus is apparently written
from Carthage. There is a sound about it of being in the
world. He mentions the derangement of his correspondence
caused by the fact that none of ‘the clergy’ could leave the
place, ‘the whole body being placed under the death stroke.”
The attitude of all was, he says, one of hope and devotion.
He anticipates no defection, no lapse now*, He deprecates
only excitement and rash confessions’. ‘Not death, but
deathlessness,’ ‘no dread, only gladness’ were his character-
istic watchwords for them.
Ap Bo. The ninth name in BA — * BA Bo .
Εν seventh im Ap. 67, sinteenth in 7? Ap 81, De Exhertatione Martyri
Sou. Epp. Ruipar Passio SS. AMom- only gives α warning beforehand apainat
tani, Lact, alters, xii. diis. Super, p 418:
Imperial Rescript, suddenly ended his year.
summons to appear before him. But when he can
owing probably to ill-health detaining him at U
not hear him, and ordered him to retire to his o
house’ by Carthage and there confine himself.
Horti*, full of memories of the days of his pagan
and eminence, where, glowing with the light and
Baptism, he had held his colloquy with Donatus;
home which he had in early days sold for the
afresh,—it was a strange chance (so to speak)
him the quiet days there, of which he expected
came, to be the last".
High officials even, as well as people of sen
and of the great families‘, certainly not all of them
now urged flight upon their old friend* and offered hin
safe retreats. But he recognized no sign, and no inner p
ing to compliance. He felt only a fresh stimulus to
to substitute in men's minds the sanctions of the life to
for the ordinary motives of the world. He was so filled
the passion of teaching that he trusted the stroke might
to him (as it had come to Xystus) in that very act. —
still at Utica, was naturally anxious to obey the
He alone knew the special contents of the private
un Proc. x. Pontius (Vite 13)
speaks of him as at the Horti without.
mentioning how he came to be there. —
ΣῈ will be remembered that the
'Horti* of great men were important
features of the topography of Rome and
still more of Carthage. On what they
implied see Professor Mayor's stores of
quotation on Juvenal i. 75. veri
?. Quotidie sperabat veniri ad se, Act.
ΧΙ. THE BIRTHDAY. 495
to the Governors, and presently he sent two of his military
clerks’ to fetch the Bishop quictly over to Utica.
But now acting with the coolness of a person used to take
his own course in details, even with magistrates, Cyprian was
not to be found. He was gone to one of the offered conceal-
ments—there to stay until the Proconsul should be able to
come to Carthage. He was sure that the summons to Utica
meant death. And although he had no fear of death,
Cyprian had deliberate views as to the scene of his death.
This was no new impulse, no new prudence. Years before
he had congratulated Lucius on his return from exile to
Rome*, most likely to die there, on this very ground
because ‘the victim which has to sct before the brother-
*hood the pattern of manliness and of faith ought to be
‘offered up in the presence of his brethren’ So now from
his retreat he writes to his Presbyters, Deacons and Commons,
that he only awaits the Proconsul's visit to Carthage, because
“the City in which he presides over the Church of the Lord is
‘the place where a Bishop ought to confess his Lord and to
‘glorify his whole Commons by the confession of their own
‘prelate in their presence! So to confess, there to suffer,
thence to take his departure to his Lord, was now his con-
stant prayer’. Beyond this, he fully felt that something
Divine might be breathed into the last words of a Confessor-
Bishop. Confession was more after God's mind than the best
* Commentarii or Commientariemses
were military clerks in the Proconsal’s
Office who kept the journals of peo
ceedings. Their position was zmomg
the highest Principale, or officers below
the rank of Centurion. One of their
duties was, ax we see by later laws
(p. 37%, 380), to schedule prisoners,
their offences, rank and ages and they
were responsible for their safe-keeping.
(Codex Justin. 9, 4, 4 gh If any
difficulty had been apprehended a com
turion would have been sent, and this
‘wns done the second time, after the
present failure Cf Ruinart, Aus.
Jacobi et Mariani, Ww. At Lambarse
an altar is erected by ..4vs. SevERe
4 «MMENAH we sek) Exevicd
dg. AVG, P. Fr (A.D. 161); another.
names the Commentariue of the {πῶ
Legion there, Comp. tracer, Lis Vilis be
a3: cf. 2586.
DN
* Ep δι.
XI. THE BIRTHDAY. 497
and villas, Roman, Arab, European, ever since the ‘rare,’
'sparse' native kraals called Mapalia disappeared from it,
yet left their name behind. Its rich trees and flowers have
seen the great bare hill piled with marble Carthage, then
stripped to build Tunis or shipped to Pisa, and they are still
there in their glory. The Thascian gardens then cannot
have been very far from the Villa of Sextus where the sick
Proconsul lay.
Early on the 13th September an unexpected chariot drove
through them to the villa door, while a guard of soldiers pre-
vented other egress’, The chariot brought two ‘ Princifes?
as they were styled,—chief centurions. One was a very
important officer of the legion, and was, besides, the Pro-
consul's own s/afor or equerry. The other was attached
to the prison department. They quietly fetched Cyprian
out, lifted him into their chariot and drove away with him
between them*,
3 This only can have been the use of
bringing soldiers to the villa,
* ... principes duo unus strator officii
Galeri Maximi proconsulis et alius
cquistrator à custodiis ejusdem officii.
Mia Prec. 3.
Anyone must be struck with the exact-
ness of the terms ured in the dete s, and
the more general but quite correct mage
in Ponti. The second centurion of a
legion was called prime cehertit princess
prior οἱ primceps praterti, C. J. L. τα,
i. 2917, i. $293, or simply princess. His
duties required the assistance of an ad-
utor, a librarius nnd an option C. Leo
vun.iagsg- The tahulz militares were
in his hands. He was an officer of much
consideration, C. 7. Z. vin, is 2676,
the Princeps of the 3rd Legion builds
a temple to Iavietus Augustus κε
suo ἃ solo” at Lambesc. Zit, 38qi,
the Princeps of the ani legion "vix, an.
LX...’ αἰνὰ built a mamoleum at Rome
B
‘in procdiis eui! Here we find bim
able to receive Cyprian and his friends
Jn his house for the night,
A strator originally saddled (stermere)
the great officer's horse and assisted
him te mount. The Governors of im:
perial provinces and the Prefect of the
pretoriam had stratores personally at-
tached vo them; but not so Proconsuls,
who were required to employ soldiers in
that capacity. (Ulpian, ap. Digs εν 16) 44
*Nemo proconsulum stratores snos har
Duane pie a
nisterio in provinciis funguntur.
pss eai enu rod pe
strator was valued and the title retained
after the function was laid down, Com-
pare Gruterl, Corp, Znscrrs tsps 631, ἂν
Ἄς, "strator consulis."
sidis stratores,’ 3957, "istrafer lepasi';
"Vr. ἢ, geos, ‘stator ejns," se. of the
Procses of both Mauritanias..
32
XL THE BIRTHDAY. 49
The first convoy had passed so quickly through a quiet
quarter to the Proconsul's, that none were aware of it, until
Cyprian was again on his way to the house of the Princeps.
Then the rumour ran fast. Thascius the famous orator, the
benefactor in the plague’, was in custody. It was a spectacle
of regret to the pagans, of veneration to the faithful. A vast
multitude assembled. The whole Christian ' Commons, so it
was said, watched the house lest the least movement should
escape them, Afterwards they realized that they had been
kceping the Vigil of the Martyr. One message they received
from within in the course of the night, a charge that the
maidens who were abroad should be well cared fort.
The morrow rose with the broad pure blaze of the African
sky without fleck of cloud. The bay was a sca of glass
mingled with fire. A wonderful walk lay before him as he
turned away to the north-west. The crush of public buildings
on the High Byrsa, the narrow streets of tall houses falling
down from it on all sides, the mass and the fierce colouring
of the immense temples, the vast palaces of base and sayage
amusement—how long would this order of things last? what
would become of it, face to face with the Bishops and
Councils when they should come to their strength, as even
now they represented a New Order well begun? The City of
God rose before him more solid than those material amazing
bulwarks, grander than the majesty of Roman Law, more real
than the immeasurable force behind it.
His path led across the Stadium. As he crossed it his
appear, Kéeqstum (technical word) ὠ ! Pont. Wit. τε; cf. 11, ille qui fecerat
ὧν carcerem: (Digeita, 4B, ἂν t, 3) or — boni aliquid pro ciritatis salati.
as bere ἐπ curtotiam (ibid. 19), Not ? This was the subject within half ας
merely ‘idera custedia’ but dlinats, -
which refers to the entertainment, Cast-
vite, in its post-classical sense, of the
higher rank of the people of 2 gres! 4, treats this as a marked instance of
howchold. Ex wen, the style snd ‘pastoral wakefulness.”
habit of Cyprian.
32—2
should be struck, a great example made.
The smooth paved road was deep and
dust, as they emerged from the dark close
luxuriant plain. Among the date palms ripening -
gathering, and high above the silver olives, on wl
final bloom was just appearing, the cypresses t
and still, The stubble of the reaped corn was st:
the vines had been relieved of their burdens, the g
were white with the long summer, and the vast
dazzling flowers had faded, all but the invincible
asphodel.
Beyond the wide and peerless tract of vegetatio
myrtle and lentisk, gaps opening into the world’s
and the solemn aqueduct bringing rivers of living
mountains leagues away.
How much of natural things filled the old man
know not—he was beyond caring for little things, but
knows whether those things are little, Certainly he h
lost that humorous observation which has sometimes
us unexpectedly in gravest moments.
1 gressus est domum Principis sed
Christi et Dei Princeps, Pont, Vit. 16;
compare 18,
8 Ex omni parte vo/latur, Pont. Vit,
E
5 Aca. Prov. 3, multa turba convenit
XI. THE BIRTHDAY. 301
They reached the Pretorium. The crowd was great.
The hearing was appointed for an open colonnaded court
called Atrium Sawctolnm*. Again the Proconsul was unable
to receive him at once and a more retired room was at his
service to rest in. The seat, so it happened, was covered with
& white linen cloth like a bishop's chair in the apse. His
clothes were soaked through and through with perspiration
from such a walk. One of the officers* whose business was
to carry the Proconsul's passwords to the posts, offered him a
change of clothes. Humanely but, Pontius thought, not quite
disinterestedly. He was a Lapsed Christian and knew the
yet innocent store set by Relics* Cyprian himself only
replied, ‘Cures for complaints that will be over maybe in the
day!"
At last the Proconsul asked for him. He was hastily
ushered in and was face to face with the great governor
sitting in his civil dress between the high officers of his
staff and leading provincials who formed his council ; behind.
him six lictors with the rods and axes*; before him a small
tripod, or a chafing dish with live coals in it, and a box
of incense. It was a brief trial, for Roman courts were
rational. He was arraigned on the one count of Sacrilege.
As Sacrilege legally covered every violation of or careless
? Atrium Sanetolum. Acta Pree, 3.
‘The only illustration 1 know of this
mysterious name was pointed oat by
Bp. Fell. In the great Frankish Council
at Macon under king Guntramn, a:b,
$84, any Cleric is forbidden to attend
‘ad locnm examinations reorum’—(é2,
place of torture, ef, Tert, δυνόμουν, 7,
maryria fidei examioatoría)—* neque
intersit atrio saseiofo wht pro renter sui
Conc, Matisconense, ii. cam. xix. ap.
Labbe, Mansi, Florentis, 1263. t. 1X.
«ol φ56. No Roman court would bear
a name meaning ‘place of execution";
Galerius's *atrium sauciolam " wasclearly
not such a place. Criminals would not
be beheaded within the house. The
appropriation of the name to a death>
chamber mast have been altogether
later,
* ^ Quidam ex Tesserarils,’ Pont. Fir,
16; wee Dict, Gb. and Kom. Amt, vol.
1. pp: 277, Bor.
? Pontius too, Pf. 16, *sudores jum.
sanguineos is a curious exaggeration.
* deta Pree, y €. Pout. Va. 16.
Ch ίχειμα, ty 16. a
‘On the curious insignia ( symbola")
which belonged to the Proconsl of
Africa, ses. Rewwe Africaine, vol. VIN
B 2}
ΧΙ. THE BIRTHDAY. 503
He said, ‘Your life has long been led in a sacrilegious
‘mode of thought—you have associated yourself with a very
“large number of persons in criminal complicity: you have
“constituted yourself an antagonist to the gods of Rome and
‘to their sacred observances, Nor have our pious and most
‘hallowed princes, Valerian and Gallien the Augusti, and
‘Valerian the most noble Czesar', been able to recal you to
‘the obedience of their own ceremonial And therefore,
‘whereas you have been clearly detected* as the instigator
‘and standard-bearer in very bad offences, you shall in your
*own person be a lesson to thosc'—they were present— whom.
*you have by guilt of your own associated with you. Disci-
*pline shall be ratified with your blood He then took the
prepared tablet and read, 'Our pleasure is that Thascius
Cyprianus be executed with the sword
* Thanks be to God, said Cyprian.
‘To the bosom friends who had realized that this was the
revealed 'morrow' and this the sentence suspended in the
dream a ycar ago, cvery word of the judge seemed bcyond
himself and spiritual and prophetic in the manner of Caiaphas.
It was all true— standard-bearer” he was—‘foe of the gods"
he was,—and a fresh ‘discipline’ of martyrdom was inaugu-
rated, consecrated.
But the Christian multitude broke out in a more. human
he expands ‘sacerdotales coronas in gave him the title of Augustus, and on
Africa primus imbueret, &c. his tomb at Milan he was called Im-
Ὁ This passage answers Eckhel, who
says (vol. vri. p. 427) that the young.
Valerian never became either Augustus
orCowsr. But in the British Museum.
there is a besutifal medallion of these
three heads with Salonins, inscribed
* Pietas Augustoram, Concordia Augus
torum, Gruber, Seman Madallionz,
Br. Mei. pl. alviic a. Several laws
of dates 348—369 are under their
names in Codex Justinianus. Gallienus
XI. THE BIRTHDAY, 505
thick upon him had presented themselves to him as the ex-
pected message of God. Nothing could so perpetuate the Unity
which he had lived for in the Church as that he should place
the seal upon it now’. But nothing came to him which he
could distinguish from the working of his own mind, nothing
which he could recognize as ‘given him’ in that moment.
He knew that his every word would be accepted as an in-
spiration, And he was silent. He might disappoint them
but he would not delude them for their good.
There was a delay in the arrival of the executioner®,
When he appeared Cyprian with his usual largeness of ideas
about money desired his friends to give him twenty-five gold
pieces’, The grass before his fect was now strewn by the
Christian bystanders who stood nearest with linen cloths
and handkerchiefs*.
He took a handkerchief, perhaps one of these; folded it
and covered his eyes with it, and began to tie the ends, but
? Se the Martyr Montanus re-enun-
sited Cyprian» principles Ruinart,
seio Montani.
? Specwiafee. "The form apienlator in
Act, Pres & ls due toa wrong derivation
and is mot found in the Inscriptions.
Livy xxxi, 14, using the word to represent
‘Aemerodrones ingens uno die emetientes
spatium incidentally gives the te
derivation, a ἡβοσμέν- τα look-ont officer,
There were to each legion ten such
officers of the rank ‘princifater,’ nest
below centurione, who carried the dite
patches very rapidly, and as alert
athletic men were also the usual execu-
toner ‘They carried Caius’ dispatches
in state to the Senate on his absurd
‘conquest of Britain, Suet. Cadig. 44, and
brought to Vitellius the news of the
submission of the East from Syria and
Juda, Tac. Hist, ti, 75, For the other
‘capacity, see Mark vi. 27, 38... ewacavAde
repa ἐσέγαξον ἐσεχϑῆνοι τὸν κεφαλὴν.
αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἀπελθὼν ὠπτιεφάλισεν αὐτὸν
ἐν τῇ oa —In Senec. de fra i. τό
the speculator is the exeectionwr (infr.
T fo6, n. 3 on cenfrion and apvewlator).
At Lambsese are throe inscriptions on
apecwlatorer of the Think Legion, Gop,
mier. Latt. wnt. k 2603, 2895, 2989 5
another, 4381, at Seriana calls one of
the same legion rertarisu) fins,
3 The aurms, equivalent under Au-
gustus to the forty-sixth past of a fibre
‘or 126 English grains of gold, had sunk
by Galliemie time to about 7o grains
Troy, which in English money would
be about riz. Sd., so that the fee which
Cyprian gave was nearly £15. Maxie
milian gave the geewisfer his new
military suit, Ruinart, Acta Sti, Afaxj-
miliami A. iii.
^ Acta Proc. &, linteamina et manu-
alia. Manvalis, not a classical word.
See infs. The drror of Cyprian, 4, la~
time mamwaler, p. διό
XL THE BIRTHDAY. 507
multitude’ as contrasted with the communions of after years
held on that same ground. But at the time there was no
triumph, no molestation, There was evident surprise, And
they wished to gaze more closely on the man who had been an
acknowledged benefactor to the city, and yet (so they were
assured) was a deadly enemy of the State, head in all Africa of
an unfathomable society whose unity was coextensive with
the unity of the Empire; a man who would sooner die than
consider whether he could honour the gods.
They came and went while daylight lasted. Through
the night the Christians, still unhindered’, bore him with wax
lights and torches, with ‘prayer and a great triumph, to the
cemetery of Macrobius Candidianus. Bearing the name of a
former Procurator as its owner or founder, this resting-place
can scarcely have been appropriated yet by Christians It
lay within the beautiful region of the Mapalia, yet close to
the busy strect and gate of the city proper’, and near to the
cisterns of Maálka into which the enormous aqueduct poured
its ceaseless river.
The effect upon the Christian multitude assembled by
Galerius was the reverse of what he contemplated. Their
Martyr had fallen as he resolved, among them. And he was
the first Martyr Bishop of the Church of Carthage, or, as they
believed, of Proconsular Africa’, since its foundation in the
Apostolic age. There grew on them also touches of im-
mediate likeness to Christ's Passion—his being carried to
judgment between the two apparitors*, the Zacchzeuses who
? The Proconsal could not at this
time have refused, if he would, to give
ἀρ the body. Ulpianus, libro ix. de
efficio proconsulis, “Corpora eorum. qui
Capite damnantur cognatis ipsorum
meganda non wunt'i but Paulus says,
"Corpora animalvenorum quibuslibet.
petentibus ad sepultura danda sunt."
Ulpian adds, ' Nonnunquam non per-
smittitur maxime majestatis cama dam-
natorum,' Diperta, 48.24, 1. 3 (See
De Rossi, Aottetting, ann. Wt. p. a7.)
51 wenture here to assert what 1
think can be shewn; see pu $09.
? We have Ponti" clear statement
of this, Fg. 15, t9, but it js singular
if these was no instance in the province.
during the Decian persecution,
* This ἧκε significantly touched in
the deta, 3, "levaverunt in medioque
THE BIRTHDAY.
Where was Cyprian Martyr buried
He was brought with torchlight procession? ‘ad areas Macrobii. Can-
didiani procuratoris quae sunt in via Mappaliensi juxta Piscinas Here
are three points Tissot has translated the first point to mean ‘la maison
‘du procurateur Macrobe dans la cour extérieure de laquelle fut enterré
“Je corps du martyr?’ But Areas as usual means ‘the burial place’ And
Macrobius could not well be the procurator at that time, because to wel»
come Cyprian's remains would have implied relations with Christianity
at least kindly, and for a great official dangerous, whereas during the
vacancy after Galerius’ death, which immediately followed Cyprian's, the
then procurator governed the province with almost furious rigour against
the Christians®, [In a proconsular or senatorial province the Procurator
was over the branch of the Fiscus, and in matters of inheritance, legacies
and various Imperial dues, had concurrent jurisdiction with the Pro-
consul himself, We have inscriptions relating to three ‘Procuratores
Africae Tractus Karthaginiensis‘, as well as to other ‘Tracts,’ Hippo,
Madrumetum, Theveste.] These Aree then in which Cyprian was
buried were no doubt a cemetery provided or founded by a former
procurator, and bearing his name, as those at Rome bore the names of
their founders.
Where were these Aree? They were ‘in via Mappaliensi,’ a second
point. Provided in Roman times, they would probably be outside the
city proper. Old Carthage (wrote Cornelius Nepos) ‘had the aspect of a
double city, the ‘outer town’ of the Magalia ‘embracing’ the inner
Byrsa and precinct’, But the limited space, the wall along the bay, and
? Since the text and following notes — also at Carthage Montanus desires *...in.
have been in print the third Lirrwiene — medio corum in area solum servari jassit
ut nec sepulturse consartio privaretuz,"
Paczio SS. Momtare &c. c. xv. (Ruinaet]
at Cirta people were shut up "ἴω area.
martyrum ...in casa. majore," Gest ajos
ZeneyAiluro, ap. Dupin's Optatus (Paris,
Feuille xiv. is Za Aferse, with a sup- — 1702), 0.119. De Rosi exylains, Balled
plementary chart and text. ‘This has Jing, ann. 11. D. 45, that caos means a
‘pot necessitated any alteration in this
work, but the plan in this volume is
mainly drawn from these mags.
? Acta Proc. δι
* Tissot, vol. 1. p. 660.
* Tertull. M Sap 3," sub Hilariano
preside cum de areis sepulturaram now. — ad Aim i. 36% (see Thilo and Hagen's
irarum adclumawsent Ares non sink’; — Servius, Legs. 1878), * Carthago antca.
XI. THE BIRTHDAY. sue
itself or the great wall which, though Carthage was dismantled, could not
be destroyed (and is not destroyed yet), which went east from Malka to
the sea, shutting the city proper off from Megara, But it may have
been the wall on the west of Megara.
‘The third point is that the Aver were *juxta piscina’ that i&
no doubt the immense cisterns at Madlka which are just outside that
great wall. The smaller cisterns by the sea do not fit the other points
as these exactly do. 1 cannot doubt then that within a few yards we can
mark the site of that Basilica of Cyprian’s resting. by the
Piscine, outside the antient north wall of the Byrsa, within the Mapalia,
and on the long street which traverses it.
There is however a passage which at first sight seems irreconcileable
with this locality. Maximilian of Theveste, beheaded in A.D. 295
for refusing as a Christian to serve in the army, was buried sud
monticulo juxta Cyprianum. martyrem secus gatum, or in the other
MS, of this passio, alatiwm. Tissot thence concludes that Cyprian was
buried not far from the Proconsular Palace’, which he elsewhere shews to
have been on the eastern slope of the Byrsa-Citadel, which was crowded.
with buildings. Intramural and Christian interment in such a spot at either
date scems impossible, and that spot could not be called junta pilrcinas,
This being so [ think it possible that Palativm in the 13th cent. Ms.
was a correction, and that J/atwnr may represent plafteam. Near to the
Platea Nowa, and near the shore, there was ἃ third church of S. Cyprian,
the Memoria Sancti Cypriani, in which Monica by Augustine's per-
suasion spent the night in which he eluded her affection and sailed for
1 Cf, Atias Arche, de ta Tini,
mote on Za Marva, txxx. CL C. 2.
Semiiticarmm, 1. p. 243
? The Passion of Maximilian was
first printed at the end of the Oxford
Edition ef Lactantius, de Mortibins Per-
recuforvem, vato, 1686, (rom 'messbranas
Sarisburiensee' Mabillon, Ve. Ane
lecta, tom, tv. 1685, reprinta it pp. sif.
“es codice Sarensi nuper Oxonii Vulgata.
post Lactantii librum de morte peeve
catoram, a V. C. Stephano Balusio
primum editum: quam Pasionem hic
Mt. S. Michel Is now no. 167 in the
Town Library of Avmnches. It ἧς
only of the 13th century.
‘reeudere vinum est ad superiora [iei im.
domo im] Martyrum acts illostranda. '
Rulnart, Acta Martyrum sincera, prints.
it *ex codice xs. Montis S. Michaelis
cum editis collato."
The Sarum μὰ, hus di .
and we do not know ite date. That of
piece of execution, not of burial, and
‘there is no indication that the Villa.
where Galerius was, though properly
called à Pretoriwm, wns called Palatium,
The lute ws. Mt, S. Mich, had fala-
ium, also Ruinart, Ache MM.
5 Tisset, t. 660,
XI. THE BIRTHDAY, 513
the trial near the Pretorium or Palatium. Proconsulare which, as he
shews, stood on the steep slope of the citadel and looked towards the
ports’, Butit is next to impossible that a place called ad Sexi with an
ager Sexti and 4 very large wood could be so situated, even if no reasons
carried it elsewhere, But the error arises from imagining the word
to be so limited in use. At this time fwuforium, *head«
quarters, had passed into a common name for the residence-house and.
buildings, the a7dana, of any great estate, Pontius’ word ‘ praetorium"
would perfectly suit a villa ‘ad Sexti; even if the Proconsul did not
occupy it. There is no contradiction between Pontius and the Acts.
From the house of the Princeps to a@ Sexti is called iter lonmgum?,
which scarcely could be applied to the distance from near the Palatium.
to the Cistarns of Maálka ; so that ad -Ser£i was probably a good way
beyond thai—say twice as far. Ayain, the body was brought back
fer noctem. ‘This was along the Mappalian Way, which probably was
also his way out. Its being brought there favours the idea that 'Sextus's"
‘was in that wide, healthy, beautiful region, which has from immemorial
time been all gardens and villas, the present El-Marsa in which the
English Consulate lies among its gardens and trees. It seems probable
that the trial and execution were not far from that. The sites marked
‘out under the auspices of the Cathedral do not claim to be and have no
interest in being authentic. ‘They are for the convenience of functions
and functionaries, On the spot where he fell was erected the Holy
Table of one of those Basilicas which Victor speaks of, and it was called
‘Mensa Cypriani! Augustine*, while he says that everyone knew it who.
knew Carthage, finds it well to explain that it had never been used by
Cyprian, but only was marked by his offering to be a place for offerings.
The dress of Cyprian,
In preparation for the death-blow he took off first the Zacersa Ayrrus,
then the daématic; then he stood in his ἄμα. He was unable to fasten
the /aciniaz manwales,
5 Vol. t.p. 660, p. 649. Atlas Archéol,
4e la Twwirie does not hold with any
special identification of the ruins, note.
on Za Marsa, xli.
# Digesta, $0, 16, 198, Ulpian, *pneto-
ria voluptati tantum deservientia" come
under tke definition of mráana rudis,
ie. estates in the country with buildings
of townsfuhion. Jus. 75, ‘eriminibus
Mebent hortos, sreferia, mensas, Are
».
gentum vem Suet. iA 39 ín gree
Tori» exi Spelunto nomen est,’ of which.
Tacitus, Ann. iv. 99, speaks ns *in sulle
cui vocabulum Speluncse eet. Ca.
37 im exatructionibas prateriorsem at
villarum."
* Pontii Hit. 16.
+ Ur sep. Vietor Vitemis, k 3.
* Aug. Seem. 319, δ, 2
33
XI. THE BIRTHDAY. 515
ig never heard of among Romans till the end of the second century. The
learning about it is too extensive and accessible to repeat. It was squarely
constructed, of good material, and being made originally of one width,
had a fringe or selvage down the joining of the edges on one side only.
The colobion, otherwise like it, had no sleeves. The dalmatic had large
stiff sleeves as far as the elbow, which were not always sewn up under the
arm.
When we consider that as late as A.D. 222 under Elagabalus, a man
who wore a dalmatic in public did something ew/r/!, and that in 4,D. 301
the Edict of Diocletian* fixed the prices of all sorts of dalmatics
for men and women, according to their manufacture (the African were
cheap) as regular articles of wear, it i» impossible to conceive that about
halfway between these two dates they had been adopted as solemn
ecclesiastical vestments. Further, not till under Silvester 1. (314—338).
whe in his last Council of 335 (according to Roman tradition) certainly
magnified their office, was the dalmatic adopted for Deacons instead of
the sleeveless co/otion®, but this was for the Seven Deacons of Rome.
Two centuries later, A.D. 513, the Deacons of Arles receive licence to use
it, perinde ac Romane ecclesi diacomi*, ἴπι A.D. $99 Gregory (Epp. l. ix.
Ind. i. Ep. 107) grants the use of it ‘after much consideration’ ‘as a
new thing" to the Bishop of Gap (Vapincum) and his Archdeacon, so that
the common idea that it was the proper episcopal dress before Silvester
cannot be true, and the use was still connected with Rome. But when
Gregory conceded this, it must be remembered that persons like self
and his father at any rate, who were of senatorial rank, wore it laically
(Joann .Diac. Vit, S. Greg. iv. 83,84). Gregory's Sacramentary (ed. Bened.
vol. tit. col. 65, Paris, 1705) is quoted in proof of the early liturgical use of
it, the Pope and the Seven Deacons being directed all to wear dalmatics
for the consecration of oil ‘on the Thursday in Holy Week.’ But what-
ever the use may have been, these Rubrics are not part of the original’,
in Spain the dalmatic had not become a clerical vestment in AD.
633°. — Considering then the lay use of the dalmatic in the third century
and the Roman aspect of its ecclesiastical use later, it is out of the
question that it should have been an ecclesiastical vesture in Africa in
ἃ Lamprid. Amin. Helageabaltus, 26.
? Fictum Diocletiani de estis
merum, Corp. tuserr. Lat. Wi. i po
336. W. H. Waddington, uit dr
Dioclétien, p» 30^
* See Vila Silvestri P., Labbe (Mansi)
wol. 1. coh. 444, Florent. 1749.
4 δέ, Regio ann
£13, vol. p.p. 99- Fife. Casarid, 4.
? They are not in Marator’s Vatican
»s. or in Cod, Ottoboni, both of the
early ninth century. They cannot be
traced earlier than the Orr Aemannr
1 of which Muratori has two recensions:
(Lite Rem, Vet) vol. tt 99a and 1006,
and these Rubrics represent ahi. The
Ondo seems to have been compiled about
A/D. pgo and describes the Roman rite
of perhaps the serenth century. M.A-w-
cw.
© See Dist, Chris, Anti. 1.9. Dalma-
tice,
33-2
ΧΙ. THE BIRTHDAY. $17
striking inscription reveals it (Corp. nserr. Latt. vt. & 2532). On the
pedestal of a column which formed part of the west gate of the camp.
at Lambiese the Third Legion inscribed a speech which Hadrian ad-
dressed to them on ἃ memorable visit. He mys ‘the Legate has
‘explained to him that he may notice certain deficiencies, and has given
“the reasons for them.’ Among these is
OMNIA MIHI PRO VOBIS IPSE Daft
COHORS ADEST QUOD OMNIBUS ANNIS PER VICES IN OFFICIUM Fh[ocow]
SULIS MITTITUR,
"That is one cohort of the Third Legion from the camp at Lambmse was
always in attendance im annual turns on the Proconsul If we ask why
the whole Third Legion was not under the command of the Proconsul,
the answer is in Tacitus, Hés#. iv, 48, Caligula, insanely jealous of the
then Proconsul, took away the control of it and established a Legate to
command the Legion and (as we know from elsewhere) the fortresses.
The soldiers then who appear in the narrative with their tribunes,
centurions, and the other officers so freely named belonged to that
cohort of the Third Legion which for that year was appointed to the
officium of the Proconsul.
Of the Massa. Candida,
"We have seen how Cyprian was summoned to Utica by the Pro-
consul undoubtedly with a view to his execution there. From the
different mentions of the group known by this curiosity-wakening name
of Massa Candéda it has been inferred by Tillemont as well as
others that in 258 A.D, on the 18th or agth August!, a great number
of Christians were summoned thither, and martyred. But the accounts
cannot be put together, or rather there are none which can be put
together. ‘The facts are these. (1) Augustine's Enarration of Ps. 144 (or
part of it) is a sermon preached at Utica in the ' Basilica of the Massa
Candida’ He preached Sermon 306 on the solemnity of their *Natalis';
in Sermon 311, preached at Carthage, in the Memoria of Cyprian on his
‘Birthday’ (c. 10), he mentions them as " Uficems’s Massa Candida,’ and
apparently as having been rich and poor together, but not as being
specially connected with Cyprian. That he mentions them along with
Cyprian is merely because both illustrate his point. In his Enarration on
Ps. 49, c. 9, he speaks of '...sola ἐπ proxfmo quie dicitur Massa Candida’
* Aug. mih, tX, Kal, Sept, Ution * Heading in Cod, Floriac. ‘habitus
SS. ww. ccc. Maru Candide. Ka. Uticw in basilica Masse Candide.” No
dewdar, Ant. Eccl, Carth; Aug, 18th — reason to dowbt this, which agrees with
Hieron. Afartyrolag.s 240 Ado; agth — the allusions,
Usaard.
dark, His prayer sonerves the. 3oocf'
vede cid Leon cog ac τος ἐς τέξει τος
the place where Cyprian was to be executed, all dung
lime as well as that of their souls, Then Cyprian is brought
Proconsul and beheaded, ‘rejoicing in their martyrdom,”
‘Thus literally there exists nothing like history. Not!
what period or in what way the Group suffered. The arj
ey
it Cua need lA
eer the supposition that
ΧΙ. THE BIRTHDAY. 519
Pontius, c. 11, says ‘quid sacerdos Dei proconsule interrogante re-
sponderit, sunt Acta quae referant.
Pontius's expression ‘pudlicata voce} c. 18, is not intelligible without
the exclamation of the people as given in Acta Procons. 5 init.
The tying of the handkerchief is a detail in which Pontius corrects the
account of the Acts (see Text, p. 505).
So is also his explanation that it was the centurion in command and
not the executioner who actually gave the death stroke. (Pont. 18 com-
pared with Acta 5. Text, p. 506.)
The short Passion of Cyprian which Fell gives p. 14 ‘ex MS. S.
Victoris nec non Bodleiano I.’ and which Rigault (and apparently Fell)
thinks the more antient form is nothing but a piece (c. 2—4) of the longer
one with abbreviations and interpolations meant to give a more formal
appearance, so that it is best presented, as by Hartel, merely in the shape
of various readings on the genuine Aca, Pontius and Augustine, Sermm.
309, 310, and c, Gaudentium i. 31, (40) quote only from the longer one
phrases and words which have been modified in the shorter and later.
XII. AFTERMATH. 521
could foster to a wild growth, cannot be denied, although
Augustine has shewn with what exaggerations the mistake
was urged, and what corrections he had himself supplied.
But it fell unhappily on a widespread temper, mad for laxities
in one direction, mad for exclusion in another, mad for
a ceremonial materialism in a third, and a temper charged
moreover with political revengefulness.
This was Cyprian's unforescen contribution to Donatism
—the invalidation of an ecclesiastical act on account of
subjective imperfection in the minister, For the modem
doctrine of Intention he has no responsibility.
The last of that string of canons which, beginning with
those of Nicza, was affirmed in the second canon of the
Quini-Sext Council in A.D. 692, was *the canon put forth by
* Cyprian, that was Archbishop of the land of the Africans and
* Martyr, and the Synod of his time, which canon prevailed in
‘the places of the aforesaid prelates, and only according to the
‘custom delivered to them.’ The Greek acceptance of this
Council might seem to commit their Church to Cyprian's
practice, unless the canon be interpreted as supposing the
practice still extant and still limited to Africa. Some inter-
pretation must be found for it as it stands, for it is in flat
contradiction to part of the ninety-fifth of the same Council,
and the usage did not prevail among the Greeks.
The canon was however turned into Syriac, accepted by
Syrian Churches, and became the ground on which Jacobites
rejected the baptism of the orthodox”
A strange irony that the unanimous rulings of the African
episcopate should be swept away by the resounding Adsif,
Absit of their own successors, too impatient of it to speak or
vote, and that the vital necessity of baptism by the orthodox
should find its final lodgment with the heterodox.
Not that human hunger for exclusiveness was appeased
even in the greater Churches. The exclusions that had been
* Renaudot, Liturgy. Orient. vol, 11. p« 291.
XIL AFTERMATH. 523
day in the sanctuary which the Arian priests had splendidly
arrayed for the festival’,
To his own contemporaries he seemed for a time scarcely
to have quitted them. The faces of confessors and martyrs
beamed with the remembrance that they had been Cyprian's
disciples’. Almost his very words rose to their lips as at the
last moment they spoke of the sufferings of the Church or
commended her discipline to their survivors’. One questions
Cyprian in his dream ' whether it is pain to die*?' Another
after torture saw him sitting by the Judge, helping him
mount the steps to his side, and then giving him water from
a fountain’, That he spoke as the oracles of God, that he
was essentially a Ruler, essentially a Comforter—nothing
could better express the intense reverence for Cyprian than
these three martyr-thoughts.
Nor is anything lost if we bring that high-wrought
emotional view into comparison with the practical analytic
measure of the man.
Cyprian was possessed by two overmastering ideas. He
burned to make them live and breathe for Christian men
as for himself. He did more than any man to house them in
the life and polity of the world. The ideas were to each other
as soul and body, To him they were one fact, one truth.
One was the vital principle, the other was the organism of
Christendom,
L He was certain that human nature (in which Thucy-
dides himself perhaps thought that wickedness was not a
permanent, necessary ingredient) could be changed, could be
perfectly remoulded. He was convinced that it had in Roman
civilization taken the wrong bent; that not only the ‘superb
falsities"' of religion but many contemporary institutions which
Ὁ Procop, de Belle Vand in 3o, 3n. ὁ δὰ χαὶ,
See Appendix on 5. Cyprian't Day. ? Penis SS. aci εἰ Mariani et
5 Jano SS. Menteni at Luci, xük ὀ eornm, vi.
"Μὰ xiv. © Ang, Soom 413 $e
XII. AFTERMATH. . 525
themselves, but simply lay there in evidence, in a universal
sort of way, with the uniformity and with the varicty of thc
phenomena of nature, was the institute of the Overseership, the
episcopacy, of the Church. When Cyprian became a Christian
and placed himself under it, its authority was no new object,
either when vesting in the individual or in the union of con-
ciliar action. The individual, clected by the communicant
'commons' of Christ's Church, was their representative as
truly as the Tribune was the representative of the commons
of Rome. But he was no Bishop until he had received the
office through bishops by transmission from regions and
times in which (as Bp. Lightfoot clearly shewed in his ex-
tremely cautious and discriminating essay) 'its prevalence
‘in its maturer forms cannot be dissociated from their (the
‘ Apostles’) influence or their sanction' He was Baptizer,
Offerer, Teacher, Judge. No one fulfilled any of these func-
tions but as his delegate with no further right of transmission,
no power to confer even the humblest Orders.
The Office carried the thoughts of men (whether con-
sciously or not) back to the Origines of the three ruling
principles of constitutional governments; to Democracy, to
the power of the Aristos, to Hierarchy—Levitic or earlier.
Up to this point we are dealing only with what Cyprian
received. And Cyprian made no fresh invention, introduced
no novel action, modified no method. Yet he did more than
any man, Far more than Hildebrand with his inventions of
investiture and celibacy, It was not that he summoned
Councils and set them to solve Church-problems. Councils
had met before and determined questions. But so to speak
they had worked in the dark,
Cyprian formulated the Theory,’ as Brahe, Copernicus
or Newton gave the ‘Theory’ of the Solar System. He
‘constructed the Hypothesis’; he ‘superinduced the con-
ception upon the facts’ The conception was that the one
? "The Christian Ministry,’ Lightfoot's Ap. to the Philippians, p. 126.
ΧΙ. AFTERMATH. 527
We are not now to enquire whether in either case insta~
bility of doctrine has had any connexion with the subversion
of the primitive preservative organization. In the later
instance there are not wanting voices of anxiety, either from
within or from those without who love them unloved, lest
even that Didache, that Doctrina, that "Instruction" in the
mysteries of the faith, which it was the first object of Primitive
Institutions to secure, should tremble unsafely or slide upon
the down-grade.
But in either case where should either that Usurpation or
this Revolution look for historic justification? Where but to
the age in which the conception of a united Christendom was
formulated ?
Yet on the one hand the mind of Cyprian, dwelling on
all the phenomena which were to be co-ordinated, was found
to have been such a blank on that one central point of Roman
supremacy that a determined and sustained attempt had to be
made to remodel his language. The authorities had their will,
and yet Cyprian remains a hopeless difficulty. Even the glozed
extract is inadequate without glozing comments, Or let
the supposed teaching be tested by the conduct which it
formed. If Cyprian meant Roman Unity in principle, then
at least the next succeeding stage of the history of the
Church of Carthage, which was devoted to him, must
have exhibited some approximation to that form of unity,—
especially as one of its first acts was the removal of a barrier
by the dropping of his obstinate opinion. But what was the
fact? The great scholar and critic whose erudition and
accuracy adorn the Roman Communion of to-day shall tell
us in his own words, ‘By the end of the fourth century the
'Africans were already organized, and formed around the
‘Bishop of Carthage a close serried phalanx ( faiscraw trés serré).
“Carthage was scarcely less autonomous than Alexandria’!
On the other hand, whither should the extreme reactionaries
ἘΜ. TAbbE Duchesne, Asutes δρώνυρσαα, t, p. 9n. 3
xii. APYERMATHL 529
But the maintenance of a position unallied with the State
and outside it, independent, indifferent, unaggressive, would
have involved a faithless worldliness inaccessible to reform.
‘The external bonds may be severed for a time, says
Bp. Lightfoot, ‘but the State cannot liberate itself from the
‘influence of the Church, nor the Church from the influence of
‘the State....Where there is not an alliance there must be a
‘collision. Indifference is impossible, and without indifference
‘there can be no strict neutrality’!
The Donatist cry, ‘Quid christianis cum regibus" was
the earliest and carthliest real sectarianism. It gives up
Christianity and it gives up the world. It is content to
leave one of the world’s ‘three measures of meal’ un-
leavened. It is content that States should have no profession
of the Truth of Christ. The kingdoms of this world must
perish without ever becoming the kingdom of God and of
His Christ.
It gives up Christianity. For it confesses that there are
powers in the world which Christianity cannot and dare not
deal with, gates of hell which must be left to prevail.
For the development of the two overmastering ideas in
which he dwelt Cyprian possessed marvellous qualifications
of character, of trained literary power, of position.
The character which endeared him to the laity, and
which excited warmer and more affectionate feeling than that
of any leader in the antient Church, has been noted again
and again in these pages.
Exact habits of business suiting a lively innate courtesy
kept every authority informed of facts. He was ready to
discuss doubts and differences with every earnest and capable
enquirer, The generosity possible only to a wealthy man
was not curbed by the limits of his wealth until he had
denuded himself of his estates His passion was to work
like God in nature ‘for good and for bad’ alike. In political
\ Histertoat Essays, p. 38. 5 pent. baa.
n. 34
ΧΗ, AFTERMATH. 531
The equable grace of his eloquence, ‘the calm fountain-
like flow,’ which the same great judge marks as his character-
istic style, almost impedes the recognition of his genius.
He was so thoroughly what we call a scholar that he
edited for Christians a phrascological lexicon of Cicero*,
His diction is not unworthy to be read beside the
classical writers of antiquity; stronger tham any who had
come between him and them, purer and clearer than any
contemporary ; and that not because his ideas were simpler
and easier to render, but because no sort of affectation
had lodging in his soul He left what he had not found, a
language which Divinity could use as a facile, finely tempered,
unbreakable instrument,
When Tertullian began to write Theological Latin had to
be formed. His free, unhesitating, creative genius rough-
hewed a new language out of classical literature and African
renderings of Hellenistic Greek. It stands like the masses of
a fresh-opened quarry. Out of it Cyprian wrought shapely
columns, cornices, capitals in perfect finish, It was like the
Eocene record opening into the Pleiocene with more arti-
culate forms and forecasts of more to come, Again he had
that gift of gifts, the breathing of life into dead or languid
phrase. A fiery tongue sat on his brow as on Tertullian's,
but of a purer, tenderer radiance. Every Christian Church has
learnt of him. The lamp which all runners in the sacred
race have received is that which Tertullian lit and Cyprian
trimmed.
These gifts of character and of genius met in a man who
came to Christ from a Pagan position not very analogous to
anything in modern life—a foremost man among the great
and wealthy rhetoricians.
They had the most refined and varied culture of their
times, experiences of life in every condition. Their reputa-
tions were won before the generals as well as the lawyers
τ τ, Marie's Profatio, pp. ἐενῆϊ, Inix.
34-2
XII. AFTERMATH. 533
'he was patient in listening to what he knew his brethren
“felt”
But when we try to estimate the working of that Charity
of his on the great scale the incongruous puzzle seems at first
to be that the same man who so evolved and so used the
Theory of Unity should have been the man who afterwards
went so near to breaking up, by an opinion, the unity that
then was.
But indeed in the way of providence that doctrine of his
was an actual test of the stability and durableness of his
‘Unity.’ For certain it is that, however uncatholic that one
opinion was, however uncatholic the Roman Bishop in his
tone concerning it, Cyprian was never parted from the very
heart of the Communion of Saints in Christendom. This
was the fullest example possible of that great truth which in
word and conduct he enunciated : ‘That Christian men must
*be able to differ in opinions without forfeiting or withholding
‘from each other the rights of intercommunion',’
Wearied and weakened by separations of which the guilt,
the loss, and even the suffering can never be truly apportioned
as between those who triumph and those who are defeated,
the spirit of Christendom has feebly begun to yearn for
Reunion in some form, to recognize that a fractured force
cannot complete the conquest of Heathendom. Yet each
Church is rightly aghast at the thought of purchasing Unity
at the cost of Truth.
Cyprian does not recommend such barter to his ‘most
loved colleagues.”
What Cyprian meant is summed by Augustine and
rounded into one exact and perfect phrase. Sale Jure cnm-
munionis diversa seutire. He means that Schools of Thought
are not Communions He means that the Apostleship
1 Avg. de Bape. ἐς Dewat.vi. vii. 1. Cyprian: Ap τὰ. 31 Sout. ERA
Salvo jure communionis diversa sentire. fromm, 5.68, in. The spirit breathes
‘The actual words are gathered from through all Cyprian.
534 AFTERMATH.
and the Apostolic Creed are enough.
the harmony of mankind, im a world which is
Beginnings, never will be a harmony inte n
physical, but that it may even now be a harmony: spiritual.
and sacramental, m
Such Unity as the Lord prayed for is a mysterious |
thing. It is no fantasy, but it answers in no way to
that ‘one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism’ can be condensed |
into one Rite, one Code, one Chair. A mysterious thing.
Nothing formal. mechanical, or limitable by words. De |
evident in His very comparison and apposition of that ‘Unity |
to the relations which subsist within the Holiest Trinity. |
No intellectual expression can embrace these | relations; so |
neither can intellectual Articles of Faith express that Unity |
which He defines only by likening it to those Divine relatione |
Nothing can reach it but some mystery, compact of visible —
and spiritual ; nothing but a Sacrament.
y has to take account equally of Christ's Prayer
and of Christ's Laws: of the Prayer which He offered over
the sacrifice of Himself, and of the Laws which Himself, oer
| mast s that saying, which roots it as
dete
uctifies i the action that itself enterprises,
rch of the Future,
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX A.
PRINCIPALIS ECCLESIA, Note on the meaning of
Principalis (p. 192).
Ir is matter of grief when one finds ἃ scholar like Duchesne led by the
logie of his position to translate princifelis ecclesia " l'église souveraine"
(Origines Chrétiennes, vol. τι. c. xxiv., sect. 6, pp. 427, 436)
Postponing the question whether the principaliter originated in the
Urbs (Civitas) or the Eccleria, with other questions not belonging to the
plan of this book, we should do well to learn accurately first what the
word frinafalis meant to Romans under the Empire.
"The word is from Princeps, the ordinary title of the Emperor in daily
‘use, and medizval or later students may be excused for vaguely con-
cluding that it held in it all that was imperial and dominating, the highest
iden of authority on earth. But why was it the title of the Emperor? and
what notion did it convey to the Roman world? Constitutional and
philological research leave no doubt on these questions.
‘The theory of the Roman Emperor was that all his powers were con-
ferred upon him by virtue of the separate republican offices with which
after his nomination he was invested, at first each by itself, but afterwards
by one statute (fawrnal of Philology, XVIL p. 45). This mass of powers.
was conferred on a person who bore the most unpretending constitutional
title, ‘a title of courtesy pure and simple" (Dict. Gl. amd R. Antt. v.11.
483").
5 "The Republic itself had been familiar with the idea of «
iviletis or ‘pre-eminent single citizen, ‘the foremost man of the state,”
*and of placing at the head of the Republican system a constitutional
+ In these two paragraphs I havo pro:
ferred to make no statement of my own.
Wut to define the primcepy solely from
Professor H. Pelham's learned and com-«
rchensive papers, written wfthout any
ecclesiastical reference, vie,
or Princeps Senate” rig δὰ the
former was an independent title not
abbreviated from, or in any way ropre-
senting the latter). Je maf of Phi-
diogy, viti. pp. 393 fi.1 * On some dis
puted points connectol with the "im.
ee of Angastus and his wucces-
sors iid. xt. pp. 25 f s "Princeps
Dictionary of Gk. and Rom. Amit, oh
ed. vol. r1. py 483 ©
PRINCIPALIS ECCLESIA. 539
Ef. 139, 4, commends to Marcellinus ‘our son! Ruffinus as Cirtemsis
Principalíri.
Augustine in his Epistle 43 to Glorius, Eleusius...lays much stress
on the principate of the Church of Rome, ".., Romanz ecclesias in qua
semper apostolicae cathedras viguit principatus' [s 7), and urges the
Donatists to submit to the judgment of Pope Melchiades and his col-
league Bishops given on appeal at Rome (s. 14). Then he points out that,
supposing that Roman judgment to be wrong, there was still an appeal to
a General Council, which might reconsider and reverse the judgment
οἵ the Pope and Bishops. ‘Ecce putemus illos episcopos, qui Romae
*judicarunt, non bonos judices fuisse; restabat adhuc plenarium universe
* Ecclesise concilium, ubi etiam cum ipsis judicibus causa posset agitari,
*ut si male judicasse convicti essent, eorum sententiae solverentur " (4. 19).
‘That distinctly expresses the nature of the frincifatus. It was exactly not
‘sovereign’ in its decisions, great as was the respect to be paid to them,
‘Tertullian, de Anima, ce 13—18, bas to determine the purely abstract
metaphysical question of whether the anima or the anis in man has τὸ
ἡγεμονιεῦν, principalttas ubi sit? quid cw! preest? ‘where resides the
principatitas ? which is over which?" He renders v ἡγεμονιεόν by prim.
cifalr, the only possible term, ἡγεμών being the equivalent for princeps,
He decides of course that the principale is in the anima, of which the
animus with its senses and operations is in one view a function *officium,"
im another its furniture or apparatus ‘instrumentum’ Next he proceeds
to enquire in what ‘recess of the body’ the principale has its shrine, * esse
consecratum."
There is no analogy drawn or resemblance existent between the
metaphysical relations in this most abstract discussion and the practical
relations of political or civil ranks, and no one would pretend that the
Church is in any sense *a function,’ or. furniture,’ or * the apparatus’
of a See No definition of principaiir is sought or given by Tertullian.
‘The meaning of the word is assumed to be known by any Roman reader.
What is here supposed to be ascertained is the pre-eminent place of the
anima. 1t is simply shewn that the principale, the foremost, chicfest,
pre-eminent rank, belongs to the anima.
This however is the passage of which the Rev. L. Rivington writes
(Primitive Church and Sex of Peter, 1894, p. 58), ' Since Irenaeus wrote
* those words about Rome, Tertullian (de Anim. 13) had defined the word.
‘as meaning * that which is over anything” as the soul presides over and
1 [Cf. Cf. L. vol. v. tis m. 3786, — Apuleius, in Africa, in this century, it
viro innocenti principali civitati.—vol. — is similarly used of men and of the
1X. 989, £540) 1683, Im Cod mim. god Serapis, Afetaworph. xi. (261),
D 16,32 (51), 38, 40, 42) and vi. (i235 Ze iw ane In no
imaomcimeripüonsitsecmslikearaak case i» there a mace
belonging often to a decurion. Tm sovereignty.)
APPENDIX B.
Additional note on Libelli (pp. 81—84).
‘THe account of the Libelli, pp. 81—84, was constructed many years ago
from the various extant references to them. We little thought then to find
such actual documents extant after sixteen centuries and a half. But in
1893 and 1894 there appeared two, one in the Brugsch Collection of the
Berlin Museum, the other in that of the Archduke Rainer, brought from
the province of Faioum, S.W. of Cairo. ‘The former is a papyrus leaf,
about 8 inches by 3, much damaged but most skilfully deciphered by Dr
Krebs, who acknowledges Dr Harnack's loarned assistance in illustrating
it; the fragments of the other have been skilfully pieced together by Prof.
K- Wessel].
These documents give us a sharpened sense of the suppression planned
by Decius—a policy of * Thorough, an application of the great Koman
administrative forces to any and every individual in the Empire. The
scheme extends formally to little villages (Euseb, Af. E. vi. 42, 1), and takes
in country folks outside them, and their wives. The form in Africa is not
likely to have differed from that in Egypt. The date, we shall sce, is of
the year we are describing.
I had concluded formerly? that besides the process of Registration
there were two kinds of /ide/éé or certificates of sacrifice, onc an allowed
protest or declaration of innocence put in (/radifwr) by the person accused.
of Christianity, the other a certificate received by him (accepts) from the
magistrate that he was satisfied of his paganism. Our second papyrus
might have seemed one of the former sort, if it had stood alone, and our
first a similar one, attested by the magistrate. But their being in dupli-
cate, except for the personal particulars filled in, and their both praying
for attestation, shews that what | thought might be different documents
were combined in each /idellws, the two parts being what was conjectured.
4 The former is described and illus-
trated with a facsimile by Dr Frite
Krebs In the Síaungrlerichte d. Api.
Prouns, Abtdemie d. Wissennaften tu.
Berlin, 1893, 40 Nov alviii, p. 16075
end there is am article on it in the
Theog. Literatwraritung, Leiprig, to
Jas. gq, by Dr A. Harnack, and one
by the Bishop of Salisbury in the Guzr-
dian, Jan. 3t, 1894, pe 167.
The second is described by De
A. Harnack in the Theelog. Literatwr=
μείνανε, Leigaig, 17 March, 1894 [free
Siteseguds 4. Kaiterl. A had. 3. Wiesensch,
Phil-His. Classe ir B. Wien, 1894]
and by [Dr] A. J. Mason] in the
Guardion, March $1, 1894, Be 43
τ Dict. ef Christian Antipuitier, ie.
vol 11. p. pbi.
LIBELLI. 543
ll To the commissioners of the sacrifices of the village of Phila-
delphia from the Aurelii Syrus and Pasbelus bis brother and Demetria
and Serapias our wives, Dwellers outside the gates, We were constant
án ever sacrificing to the gods and now im your presence according to
the precepts we both poured libations and tasted of the victims and
we beseech you to attach your signature for us. May you ever prosper.
We Aurelius Syrus and Pasbes have delivered this.
] Isidorus wrote for them ar unlettered.
The date (Il. 20—24) is not so well written as the declaration, but the
signatures of the magistrates (17—19) are hurriedly scribbled with a
thick reed pen, Round brackets ( ) indicate abbreviations in the original,
square [ ] indicate holes in the papyrus.
l. 1. οἱ ῥρημένοι are the local commissioners added to the local magi-
atrates, the guingue primores illt qui edicto nuper. magistratibus fuerant
copulati of Ep. 43. 3, sup. p. 76, probably selected by higher courts.
Cf turba eorum quos ad investigandos Christianos Polemoni judicia
majora soclaverant Ruinart, Passio SS. Piontt et succ. lii
2. ‘Alexander's [sland’ in one of the former lakes of the Faioum, so
called from the veterans settled there by Ptolemy I.
3 Aurelivs from Caracalla, who gave the Citifas to the Orbis Ro~
anat, Dion. Cass. 77, 9 and cp. 60, 17. Dig. τ, 5, 17, Cf. ὀνομωστί ve
καλούμενοι rais.,.Ovrlas προσήεσαν, Dionys af. Zw. vi. 41. Note that the
magistrate is an Aurelius too.
7. Nothing indicates whether these Aurelii were genuine pagans or
lapsing Christians, ef. ἰσχυριζόμενοι τῇ θρασύτητε và μηδὲ mparepor Χριστιανοῖ
γεγονέναι, Dionys. afe Eus. vie 41.
10. τὰ προστεταγμένα &c. i.e. the provisions of the πρόσταγμα, Eus. vi. 40,
413 the Edict, £f 45. 3 or the Prirceptum (sce pp. 465, n. 4; 492, n. 2).
11, Decipherers hesitated between ὄπξιον) and ἔσπευσα xo), but the
latter is verified by the second libellus.
12. There can be little doubt that the right reading is ἐγευσάμην,
which constructs with ἱερείων, Ch Passio Pionil, ii., *sicut ceteros qui
degustabant sacrificia Acta S. TÀeodorf Amas. (Surius, Nov, 9) ‘si
execrandos cibos gustassent’” ‘Ora maculare, polluere, is the constant
expression about the sacrificati as an essential part of the test, δὰ
Ep. 20. 25 3.7.1 55. 18} 99. 12, 133 δ. 30. 31 de Lofsir, 10 15, 22,
34,25.
17,15. The reading of 18 is not certain. These are thought to be
the names of the Magistrate Aurelius......and of his Secretary Mys[thes]
{not an uncommon name), with the name of his father, Are they not
likely to be the signatures of one Magistrate and one Commissioner?
However for myc Harnack would read Γεγίομενον).
24. 2 Epiphi in Egyptian kalendar is 26 June, By that time in A.D.
MANUTIUS TEXT. 545
affine, che ne havesse a parlar col Sig. Cardinal Varmiense [Hossus,
Bp. of Varmie, Poland] avvertendolo, che "| Manutio non haveva in quel
luogo detto di sopra seguita la correttione fatta dal Faerno & da lui
ἃ che il Faerno, il quale baveva sopra di cio rincontrato molti essem-
plari e particolarmente uno, che fu della santa memoria di Marcello [1]
haveva notate le sodette parole diversamente da quel che l' haveva.
poste il Manutio, soggiungendomi il predetto Monsignore, che sendole
stata mandata una di queste opere, gli fu scritto anco a lui il medesimo.
Di che ne ho avvertito il Sig. Cardinal Simoneta, & crederei che non
fosse sc non benc, prima che tale opinionc si andassc confirmando, trovar
modo di levaria, Il che si potria fare, se cost placesse a V.S. tlustriss,
con dare auttorith a quelle parole che sono date fuori, autenticandole
‘col Testimonio & approbatione di persone che havessero visto e con-
frontato i codici antichi.
( The following is the Note at the end of Manutius! Cypréan,
Roma, M.D. LXITI.
‘The few notes follow the Index and this is on the last page but one
signed TTüi. It is on the words ‘loquitur...ecclesia’ in A. ix. (Ma-
nutius) to Florentius Puppianus, Hartel, Ef. 66. 8, p. 732, 25.
‘Pag. 106, v, 34 Logustur Petrus super quem fundata [text aedificata)
ierat ecclesia. Quantum Petro & illius Cathedrae tribuendum censuerit B.
Cyprianus, hic, & multis allis eximiis probat testimoniis. Nec quidquam
illi deperit si extant diverse doctorum ad verba Christi
Omnium tandem Catholicorum scopus δὲ finis eb tendit ut recognoscant
unum Christi loco in ecclesia esse relictü pro quo & illius sede &
successoribus rogavit ne deficeret fides iliius, & universum gregem domi-
micum pasceret. Nec quemquam movere debet qued alicubi dicat hoc
Suisse ceteros. apostoles quod fuit & Petrus, pari consortio. priditos
Aonoris & potestatis, [de unit, 4. Manut. p. 139, 32, Hartel, p. 213, 2] quod
de z-qualitate apostolatus est omnino intelligendum, qui cum apostolis
morientibus cessavit nec ad episcopos trüsiit qui succedunt. apostolis in
ministerio episcopalis dignitatis pro sua quisque portione. In solo Petro
remansit omnis plenitudo potéstatis ad universalem ecclesias totius guber-
nationem, ut catholici doctores acutissime viderunt et comprobarunt, Ae
est altenuna τί frfscorum gatrum scriptic βίαν 8 catholica cdkilvautur
dnterpretationes, & veri sensus, ad conservandam semper Ecclesia: mmi-
tatem, gua B. Cygriano wil fuit im scribendo optabilins. alioi kereteum.
de schismatum nullus fenis?
‘Thus in 1363, instantly after and notwithstanding the interpolations,
the papal warning against the teaching of the De Unitate has still to be
raised.
As there could be no more thorough exposition and example of
Roman practice, so there can be no keener comment on its futility.
B. 35
APPENDIX E.
TEXT OF THE INTERPOLATION OF
CYPRIAN DE UNITATE C. IV.
35—2
"Text of the Interpolated Passage in Cyp. de Umi£are iv. as given in the
edition of Paulus Manutius, AD. 1563 (p. 139) The clause in [ ]
is E Paméle ed, 1568 (p. 254), Rigault 1648, and Baluze (Maran)
17:
Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum: Ego tibi dico, inquit,
quia tu es Petrus, & super istam petram adificabo Eccle-
Siam meam, et porta inferorum non vincent eam. Tibi
dabo claves regni czlorum, & quz ligaveris super terram,
erunt ligata & in celis: & quaecunque solveris super terram, 5
erunt soluta & in cwlis, .E£ eidem post resurrectionem. suam
dicit; Pasce oves meas. Super illum unum zedificat Ecclesiam
sum, & illi pascendas mandat oves suas, Et quamvis apostolis
omnibus post resurrectionem suam parem potestatem tribuat
& dicat: Sicut misit me pater, et ego mitto vos, accipite 10
Rewhags of M (M: ‘frou Hartel with which dn
pelle τ τὴς eii Rer Mie gk noha ot Pe me y dial
1 that 15.0.2. inquit Mere or UN
ὙΠ ἜΡΩΣ en E CER
eclinrateni] B. σας unam BS e ‘om sa MB
bon getan Mf, itu poration d E [xr imm
Bilin s( Bod v Buh, ed a, ema Dae Caer In C E a
ET E TEX ERREUR
corum Sar La Pem Per 2. EE
INTERPOLATION OF DE UNITATE, C. IV. 55!
So ends the interpolated passage re eer here in ἮΝ
manuscripts M gn EU a
form, following the the
artus Codes aren ott Eua τὴ qui
and replaces it by the interpolated
super unum zdificat ecclesiam et quamvis apostolis om-
nibus post resurrectionem suam parem potestatem tribuat
et dicat: sicut me pater et ego mitto uos. accipite.
üritum sanctum cuius remiseritis ta, remittentur
: si cuius tenueritis, tenebuntur, tamen ut unitatem mani- s
festaret, unitatis eiusdem originem ab uno incipientem sua
auctoritate disposuit. hoc erant utique et ceteri apostoli quod
fuit Petrus, pari consortio praediti et honoris et is,
sed exordium ab unitate proficiscitur, ut ecclesia Christi una
monstretur. quam unam ecclesiam etiam in cantico canti- 10
corum Spiritus Sanctus ex persona Domini designat et dicit :
una est columba mea, perfecta mea, una est matri sux, electa.
genitrici su. hanc ecclesi unitatem qui non tenet tenere
se fidem credit? qui ecclesi renititur et resistit in
se esse confidit ?
endings of M, Q, Hat 3, And 4 and XA. Pelagii Paper th
ih vill Khor by, Fell's collation), have
E TI I ELTE
"- rete o Στ ποτὰ (Οὐδ read eem ὦ tha 10 aec Chee
Pelagii Papas 11 Ep. V1 nasi jel ipe SIS GA
,Sed et beatus Cypi tia ne dc Exot libro quem de unitatis.
nomine titulavit inter alia sic dicit: Exordium L unitate proficiscitur:
retro monifretur :
mee ae pne ee Fes ncn lan ee
fundata ext, deserit & resistit, io ecclesia se esse
CHRONOLOGY OF VALERIAN. 553
2. The dale of the capture of Antioch.
‘The main cause of confusion is difference as to the date of the capture
of Antioch by Sapor, Gibbon (c. x. p. 284, ed. Milman, 1845) and Niebuhr
(Δ c. p. 295) place this event after Valerían's capture, in 260, following (they
Velieve) Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 5, 3), who adds a special note to his
particular tale, ! These events were in the times of Gallienus,’ i.e. 360 on-
ward.
Zosimus (i 32) relates how Valerian engaged himself with Succes-
sianus in rescttling Antioch after its ruin, The fall ef Pityus in 258
was attributed to his withdrawing for that purpose Successianus, who had
saved Pityus the year before. Antioch had therefore fallen before 258.
Tillemont tries a hopeless compromise by placing its fall Inte in 258.
‘There is, however, no real contradiction between these Inte but not
careless authorities*, The fact is that Antioch was fwifce captured by
Sapor, once in A.D. 252-3, and again in 260 (v. inf.), having been in the
interval restored by Valerian. To this restoration we may refer his colns.
with the legend RESTITUT. ORIENTIS, RESTITUTOR ORDIS®.
Zosimus himself (in i, 27, a passage which almost seems to have been
overlooked) relates the capture of Antioch by Sapor in the time of Gallus,
A.D. 252 or before May 253 when /Emilian was proclaimed. Antioch was
unprepared and offered no resistance, and on this occasion, after a great
massacre and the destruction of "every building private or public; the
Persians, ‘while the conquest of all Asia lay in their power) returned
immediately home to deposit their masses Gs and spoil. Their
method often was destruction and al
"The same author writes (i. 36) that, at Mee Hie ues id
Valerian, Sapor ‘was ranging over the East and subduing all before him’
Jod rept τὴν ᾿Αγτιὄχειαν καὶ τὸν Euscbli Chronicon is dated A.D, 315,
τούτη οἰκεσμὸν olceronalrros,
? Considering the lateness of their
dates, the evident paucity and fragmen-
tary character of their materials and
the beevity with which generally they
write, the old historians scarcely merit
the lavish abuse they receive. It can
scarcely be said that the modems have
been more sucessful as critics in digest-
ing even their materials. Consider that
Dionysius Magnus is the only contem-
porary writer.
Trebellius Pollio wrote his later work
under Constantine.
‘Vopiscus began to write in a9t or ag3
and refers to Trebellias (Diver Avreli-
anus, 1...
CHRONOLOGY OF VALERIAN. 555
To the second assault belongs (it is said) the picturesque story in
Ammianus (xxiii 5, 3) of the actress suddenly exclaiming from the stage
‘Is it a dream, or do I see the Persians, and of the instant overwhelining
of the gathered population by the archery,
3. Fall of Casares of Cappadocia.
Dr Peters! says ‘Valerian burried to Cappadocia against Sapor in
AD, 258."
No antient authority gives an idea that Valerian ‘hurried’ (inertia was
his characteristic) either in that year or any other, or that Sapor was at
that time anywhere near Cappadocia.
Valerian set out, as Zosimus says (i. 36), with the view of meeting the
* Scythians, then ravaging Bithynia; only he got no further than Cappa-
docia, and returned ‘having done nothing but just damage the cities by
his wansic’'
‘The fall of Caesarea belongs to that wide sustained campaigning of
Sapor (Zosim. i. 36), spoken of under the last head, when, after Antioch
was taken for the second time, Valerian, as the Euseblan Chronicle
rightly gives it, was captured in A-D. 260, and Syria, Cilicia and Cappa-
docia were overrun in 261.
4. The Treachery in the capture of Valerian,
‘The capture of Valerian was a tragic but not a politically significant
event. It was accompanied by no loss to the Roman armies or adminis-
tration. It is agreed by historians that it was effected by treachery,
‘but not so agreed where or what the treachery, Tt is variously attributed
to Sapor, to an unknown general, to Macrian, and to Valerian himself.
There is, however, no real difficulty in determining the fact.
In the fragment of a contemporary di: from some potentate to
Sapor with which Trebellius’ memoir on * The Two Valerians' begins the
capture is treated as simply Sapor's craft, ' Look to it lest ill befall you for
VH Ft Ase quidem Gallieni temperibus — inewrsmoeruut is not adequate to such
evenerunt' wolecs Gallioni ἴα ἃ miae — events, and the text shows sufficient
for Gaitis “The features of the story—
the time of peace, the bumt city,
the retiring with vast booty,—exactly δὲ
the former fall, Dur the second does
ot absolutely refuse them.
Clinton places this sack of Antioch
in 262 (1, anne} from the notice of that
year in Hieronymus’ Chron. Zurrhi
verunt, But it is impossible to suppose
that the raids of years had been carried
on in Syria with the restored Antioch
intact in the mid of it. The mere
was informed of the danger in which
‘Armenia stood, but did not help, tad
regionem novtram lotendam Valerianus
non perwesit, nec din vitam taxi."
APPENDIX G.
On the nameless Epistle Ad Novatianum and the attribution
of it to Xystus (p. 476).
SINCE the chapters on Xystus were in print, Dr Adolf Harnack has
published an essay on ‘A hitherto unrecognised Writing of Pope Sixtus IL.
of the years 257—81' Whether his view is accepted or not, the treatment
and the by-learning of the essay are full of interest and sugyestiveness.
If true his view is so important, that 1 select those main points which
touch our history, and must add the lights in which they appear to me.
His Excursus (pp. $4—64), comparing the Versions of Scripture used.
in Cyprian and in this author, will not come within our scope, but it is of
capital interest and value.
The ‘writing’ is the well-known Ad Novatiamun, taken hitherto
to be (as described by Hartel) ‘The work of a bishop who was on
'Cyprian's side as against Stephen (see H. Appendix, p. 55, 4), and
‘against the schism of Felicissimus (54, 12), shortly after the Decian
“persecution (57, 25)%' ὦ
Stephen is not mentioned in it, but the comparison of the Church to
the one saving Ark (as Hartel) and the *domus una id est Christi
ecclesia! (ad Novat. c. 13, H. 63, 8) are no doubt references to this
controversy, and the whole tenor of the tractateis clear, But the reference
to Felicissimus is in the supposed pun ‘quid ad ista respondeant...in-
Felicissimi pauei, and is in my judgment impossible’,
AV. Gebhardtand Harnack, Texte wmd —tyy7. Hartel had corrected previous
Untersuchungen, Xi. Vand, Heft 1, texts by εκ, K, and at the latter page
à adds the rendings of £d. Du. It was
. first marked ax not Cyprian's in Eras:
yom Jahre25;—8...on Adolf Harnack.! mus! ed. 1890, Cl. Pamel, Crp. 1568,
* Hartel’s Cypriem, vol. t1t-, Parsili
Appendix, Opera Spuria, σι, p. 55.
The 44 Nowatianuss first appeared not.
in Exasmuy’ ed, 1619, as Martel’s note
there, bat, as he corrects it (Pnefatio,
pp» 1n, xi), in the Edilio Davemtrieneis,
‘AD NOVATIANUM," 559
beginning of the persecution of Decius. The persecution of Valerian
is plainly not begun, It began Aug. 257, but not in eamest, and for
Rome not at all till Aug. 298 We have thea the limits fixed between
Aug. 255 and Aug. (257 or) 258.
The locality is interestingly fixed by considering who these Lapsi
anust have been. They fell in the persecution of Declus ; many retrieved
‘their honour in that of Gallus, but none have been restored. Now the
Carthaginian penitents were restored by the Council of May 252, to arm
them for the threatened persecution of Gallus, Bat there is no indication
‘of any such restoration at Rome. Cyprian was pressed by a lax party
‘who would have absorbed the penitents if these were kept out of the
Church much longer. But Stephanus was pressed by the Puritan party
of Novatianists, who would have absorbed many Catholics if his action
had been indulgent. Stephanus had in the case of Marcian of Arles
shewn himself unwilling to be hard on Novatianists, and was ready even
to admit their Baptism. The Roman policy had been to keep penitents
long waiting.
There are strong touches of Roman colour also in the Christology
which writes that Judas * Dewnr prodidit" (H. 64, 22. Ad Novas. 14):
and in the assumption implied in quoting the baptismal charge as given.
by Christ * Petro sed ef ceteris discipulist^ (H. 56,1. “4 Novat. 3.)
Our author then is a Bishop at Rome between Aug. 253 and Aug. 257
or 8, anxious to restore meritorious penitents of long standing, his efforts
frustrated by Novatian's action,
It being shewn that neither Stephanus nor Lucius could have written
the treatise’, it remains by process of exhaustion that the Bishop in
question is Sixtus 1L, and he had opportunity to write, for it is almost
certain that during his eleven. months and aix days’ reign the Christians
and he were unmolested at Rome: he and Roman presbyters were in
fact peacefally corresponding all the time with Dionysius.
Such is the outline of Harnack's argument, and we certainly are
grateful to him for taking us on so interesting a quest.
ll. The historic results which he deduces are still more remarkable, Historical
Thus: (1) There must have been in the time of Sixtus a new and 99^-
forceful outbreak of Novatianism, led by Novatian himself-—fecce ex afhinn’
adverso obortus est alins hostis,..Novatianua’ Ad Nowa, τ. [τ was LL being
sufficient to stem the charitable policy of the Church, or at least to "hesuthor.
compel it to parley on the question in argument with the *hzreticus"
1 The words of the charge iteslf are though the anguments adduced against
bere compounded of Matth. xxvü. t9 {δε authorship of Lacius are not very
and Mark xvi. 15. strong, yet they are satishetory in
? Argument against the authorship — the absence of any probability ea the
of Stephanus was superfluous, and other side.
“AD NOVATIANUM.! $61
inserts it. Can this be really Xystus the typical Doctor, he of the Chair,
who either confuses Simon Peter with Simon the Pharisee, or thinks
to honour the See of Rome by the change?
Iv, Bat there are alao other: passages which, If this [aa gentine letter odis
of those times, might seem to fall In with an earlier year and person. _tiows of
1 The language about Novatian seems moro appropriate to Bis due
first rise than to a recrudescence, While our author was considering how
the Lapsed should be reconciled, ' ecce ex adverso odorfus est alius hostis.
et ipsius paternas pletatis adversarius hareticus Novatianus,’ c. 1, H. $2,
12. This is not the phraseology which would be used about one who had.
now for over six years been pursuing the same policy.
2. Ine. 14 Novatian is scarcely addressed as if his sound teaching
in the Church belonged to years ago; and the writer proceeds ‘hodic
retractas an debeant lapsorum curari volnera, H. 64, τὸ, as if his
discussion of the question were new, not of such old standing as by
Xystus’ time it would have become.
3- Inc. 1, H. 53, 12 his adherents are called ‘suos quos colligit,
not as if they were a long-standing formidable congregation. Inc. 2, H.
4, 12 they are ‘vel nunc infelicissimi pauci, just as Cornelius (Euseb, Z7. E.
vi. 43) says that Novatian γεγυμνῶσδαι καὶ ἔρημον γεγονέναι, aaraypravivra
αὐτὸν nal’ ἡμέραν ἑκάστην τῶν ἀδελφῶν.
4. Compare the already quoted *ecce ex adverso obortus est alius
hostis ἃς, and the exclamation of surprise at the attitude of Novatian,
*rnirum quot acerba, quot aspera, quot perversa sunt, c. 1, H. $2, 13 with
what Cornelius writes of him (Euseb. 4«.), αἰφνίδιον émloxoros ὥσπερ dx
payydvou vue ait τὸ μέσον ῥιφθεὶς ἀναφαίνεται and ἀμήχανον ὅσην... τροπὴν
“οὐ μεταβολὴν ἐν βροχεῖ «aspi ἐθεασόμεθο ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῦ γεγενημένην. 5
5. Compare c. t, H. 53, 9 'luporum more tenebrosam caliginem op-
tare... ferina sua crudelitate oves...laniare’ with Cornelius τὴν ἀκοινωνησίων
αὐτοῦ καὶ λυκοφιλίαν.
6. Compare what is said c. 14 of his former position as a
teacher, sound on this very subject of penitence, with Cornelius’ sneer
at him as ὁ δυγματιστήε, à rie ἐκελησιοστιεῆν ἐπιστήμην ὑπερασπιστής.
7. Compare c. 8, H. $9, 1, on their intentional superscdlag. of the
name Christian’ by Novatiand with what Cornelius relates of the personal
pledges taken to Novatian in the Eucharist itself by his followers’,
In all these passages the point of view is identical The personal
angles may be different, for c. 13 treats him as having been a tender
pastor, which Cornelius does not, But the point of view is the same, Tt
cannot be said that one describes the rise of an enemy, the other the
revival of a heretic of several years’ standing.
8. The passage ‘Duplex ergo &c. from c. 6, H. p. 57, 24 does No proof
not require (as Hammack thinks) that the persecution of Gallus should be of date
? Enseb. sk 43-
B. 36
‘AD NOVATIANUM. 563
these are the continuous operation, not new strokes, of Novatianism, and
5o are related in the present tense. police ela ideo
from each other the first energetic movement and the continuous
‘result. The former it places in past time, but gives mo sign of new
development or even revival in the time of Xystus.
ν. There remains one external argument for the book being by Sixtus. The test
The Pradestinatus, which belongs to the middie of the fifth century nemis
Ne Harsch, rp 44—49)^, has in its Part L, The Catalogue of Heresies, zzimatui.
notice.
*XXXVIIL bzeresis est Catharorum qui se ipsos isto nomine quasi
propter munditiam superbissime appellarunt, secandas nuptias non
admittunt, poenitentiam denegant, Novatum sectantes haereticum, unde
etiam Novatiani appellantur. contra hunc beatus Xystus martyr et
‘episcopus et venerabilis Cyprianus martyr Christi tmc Carthaginiensis.
pontifex scripsit contra Novatum librum de lapsis quod possint per pecni-
Yentiam recuperare gratiam quam labendo perdiderant, quod Nowatus
‘adserebat fieri omnino non posse.’
‘This description of the book ‘coutra Vovatum’ is an account exactly
to the point of this fragment αὐ Vowstianum, but has no relation to
Cyprian's de Lapris. | suggest that it was the occurrence of these two words
de Iapsis which caused some erudite scribe to dusert all the words ‘ef
venerabilis...pontifer! Fortunately the word scripsi remains, which by
its construction makes the insertion certain. The rest of the statement I
must leave for what it is worth, The Catalogue of Heresies is of course
admitted by Harnack himself to be much of it quite valueless, But his
historic Erbenntniss assures him that its assignment of the authorship of
this obscure fragment i$ correct.
VI. Upon the whole, | believe that if this fragment (which does not
present many points to lay hold of) is not an historic and theological study
‘Dut a book genuinely addressed to Novatian, it is the work of a responsible
Bishop in or about Rome. But to identify the writer with Xystus is to.
create ἃ view of that doctor himself, of Rome as under the influence of
Cyprian, and of the end of the Baptismal controversy, which is not
warranted, but discredited by our other knowledge of the times.
Ὁ [First published byJacquesSimmond, — Zef Z, The Catalogue of Heresies, ix
Paris 1643. Printed in Sirmondi Opera
aria, vol. t. pp. 46g fL (Paris 1696);
La Bigne, Max. Hil. esté. Petr. νοὶ,
xxvi. p. 543 (Lyon 1677); Galland,
Bibl, eff. Patr, vol. X. po 289 (Ven.
4714). Book 4. edited by Oehler,
Corpus hereslogicum, Bero, 1886,
APPENDIX H.
Examination of the Lists of Bishops attending the Councils.
(Genuineness, Seniority.)
‘TweRe are four lists of Bishops, varying in number from 36 to 86, who
‘were assembled in Councils, or were formally addressed by Councils,
from the year 252 to 256 A.D. (App. 57, 67, 70, and Semtt. Episc.).
‘The African bishops sat by seniority according to Codex Canonum
Eccles, Africanae Can. 86, which comes from Concil. Milevit. an 416,
Labbe, 11. c 1316, ut. cc. 383, 4. This, as all the bishops there affirmed,
represented the tradition. Augustine complains of breaches of the rule,
Ef. $9. 1. They sate under their primates, and it is evident in the list
of the Council of 256 A.D. that they did not sit by provinces from the
mixture of Proconsular and Numidian sees.
1f the Cyprianic lists were genuine, then.
(1) From an episcopate so large and so widespread, we should expect
that in lists so far short of the whole number some names would recur in
More than one list, but many would appear only once,
‘Also we should find certain relations among the recurrent names.
(2) Names which appeared in more than one list would, when inter-
vening non-recurrent names were struck out, stand in nearly the same order
in different lists, allowance being made for incidents such as disputable
precedence which might arise, for instance, from date ef consecration
being uncertain or other causes, such as appear in Augustine and the
Canon as cited above.
(3) The percentage of recurrent names would dwindle in later lists
on account of deaths.
(4) In a longer list the recurrent names would be more spread out,
dotted along its whole length. ‘The later names in a list of 36 mig? be
the later in a list of 86, but if the largest list be the latest it would probably
have at the end a number of junior names not occurring in earlier ones.
If those conditions were met the genuineness of the lists would
be established. In forged lists such conditions would find no place,
unless they had been clearly foreseen, and the names arranged upon
a skeleton drawn before to ensure the appearances. But the ‘multiplicity
and complication of the relations between the names on these lists and in.
other parts of the Cyprianic correspondence is far too great to have been
invented and constructed by any romancer. Disturbances we do find,
but small in proportion, Some of them are singular and explicable,
while the very presence of other disturbances to which we find no
clue, in a case where most is coherent and our knowledge so limited,
indicates that at least they are not shaped on a plan.
LISTS OF BISHOPS. 567
TABLE I. (continued).
Tue Four Lists.
VIT* Counc,
AD. 286, Sent. Epp.
1 Caecilius so Ahymnus
1 Primus $i Saturninus I.
3 Polycarpus $1 Saturninus II.
4 Novatus
5 Nemesianus
5. Januarius I.
4 Lucius I.
8 Crescens
9 Nicomedes
10 Monnulus
1r Secundinus I.
a Εἰ 1.
13 Polianus
14 Theogenes
1$ Dativus
16 Successus
17 Fortunatus
18 Sedatus
19 Privatianus 68 Victor II.
20 Privatus 69 Donatulus
21 Hortensianus 70 Verulus
a2 Cassius 71 Pudentianus
a3 Januarius II. ἦι Petrus
2 Bii 13 s III.
4$ Victoricus ^ .
36 Felix II. 2
a7 us 7
3 ee 77 Honoratus
39 Eucratius 28 Victor III.
3o Libosus 79 Clarus
3r Leucius Bo Secundianus
31. Eugenius 81 Aurelius II.
3s Felix IIL. 82 Litteus
34 Januarius III. 33 Natalis
35. Adelphius 84 Pompeius
36 Demetrius ὃς Dioga
3; Vincentius 86 Junius
38 Marcus
39 Sattius
40. Victor I.
41 Aurelius 1.
41. Tambus
43 Lucianus
44 Pelagianus
45. lader
46 Felix IV.
47 Paulus
48 Pomponius
49 Venantius
568 APPENDIX H.
1. If we turn now to the actual lists given in Table I. side by sie.
complete as they are found in the MSS. of Cyprian, and again a
opposite in Table IL, with the omission of names which occur only ia
one list, and of very common names like Felix, where nothing points to
identification, we shall find upon an inspection of the numbers wich
give their position in each list, that the identified names do follor ir
the same sequence in each to such an extent as to shew at once tit
genuineness of the documents and the existence in Cyprian’s time d
the rule of seniority.
An inspection of Table LI. will at once shew the force of this age
ment The number of names which have their sequence exact is τὸ
markable.
LISTS OF BISHOPS. 5n
the pause (pp. 132, 133) The result of that visit was (and Cornelius
complained of it accordingly) that the clergy of Hadrumetum in ad-
dressing a second ecclesiastical letter to Rome, directed it this time not
10 Cornelius but to the presbyter and deacans of the city.
What was the object of this visit of Cyprian and Liberalis if it was not
to induce the bishop and clergy of a city which had been precipitate in its
Tecognition to suspend their judgment? And would the visit have been
‘necessary if Polycarp had been with them at Carthage?
‘The presumption is not weak that Polycarp was absent from the first
and present at the later sittings, and when we consider the names and.
numbers which follow, especially such an instance as that of Monnulus,
we must assume (it would appear) some formal cause for the anomalous
depression of these members below their usual place; and deferred
attendance seems to be at least one rational way of accounting for the
fact.
(8) In the long list of the 86 bishops of Council vit. there are two
lines of disturbance clearly not accidental, yet without more knowledge
inexplicable.
4. It will be seen that the bishops numbered 40, 48, 51, $2, 60, 64,
67, 62? 65? are all placed in this list much lower than in the others, but
that chair seniority among themselves is very slightly deranged.
4, In same list 24, 27, 21, 25, 30, 36 are alll much higher than in other
lists, but again sheir seniority among themselves is respected.
Notes. (1) The bishop Vii. 71, Pudentinnus, speaks of his own
juniority.
(2) It appears that Junius Vil. 86 unless he came late can scarcely
be the same as v. 3 Junius.
(3) In treating vit. $2 a8 Numidian Tucca, and vri. 77 a Proconsalar
Tucca, Morcelli has transposed them. For vit. 77 Honoratus is the
Numidian by £f. 62, 70, and answers τὸ 40 in Council v.
YUL $2 Saturninus of Tucca (Tercbintbina) is the proconsular bishop,
and comes in his proper place according to the other lists
(4) | have forborne to collate MEI Sees ae ea
identify νεῖ. $8 Faustus with ἵν, 25.
(Ὁ On vr. 27 sec note on Durus ol Dire TO aes? If that
view is right then vit. 27 will not be identified with 1v. 21 Quietus, but
would as Quingws take the place now given to Vit. 65 Quintus This
would be more in order, which would again still further confirm the view
taken in that note,
Stunfords Geographical Establishnart.
London: Maci
|
APPENDICES I, K.
The Cities.
574 APPENDIX 1.
INDEX TO CITIES.
PAGE ἢ na
- 608 (Mem). . 0. .. g
"LE LET:
+" 609 Mileou E 4 P AY 3.43
ipm 202 lo.
so Mowe) Dt
Neapolis . E
Gd Nova”
609
s
608
Hadumeum | 1]!
Hippo Diarrhytus . . - Thuburbo
Hipp Regus . . . Thuccaboris
Horrea Celia . . ᾿ς (Tripoli). ὁ Ὁ
Lamasba . Ὁ 0 . | S91 Tucca (Num. & Maur.)
Lambasis — © | | | 586 Tucca Terebinthina .
Laibus . Ὁ . 0. 0. 894 Ule $^ 5A
Leptin ἔς ΩΣ ὦ 9s Utbins
tisMagna . . . . $ tica
Luperciana =: || 609 (Usappa) «
Macomades . . . 0. 585 Vada
Mactharis. 20.0. 0. 004 Va
Marana. =» 3 . . o, Victorians
Mareliana? >. . — . 608 Vicus Cesaris
Mascula Qr Zama Regia
ren ae eee a
Membres. 02 0. 0. 88
THE CITIES. 57
was half in Numidia, appear for this vast Province. There were twice
as many from the Proconsular Province as from the larger Numidia, and
of the 55 who represented the Province 12 came from within five and.
forty miles of
The bare roll of the eighty-scven names would be a wonderful witness
to the commanding influence of Cyprian, but to review their cities is to
realize the material which was being shaped into Christendom.
1f we could revive but a faint picture of those cities, their number,
their beauty, their wealth, resources and administration, we should stand
aumazed at the power and the policy, the magnificence and the elaboration
with which Rome organized so resourceful a continent so wickedly won.
But a separate interest still lies in the fact that the Christians had so
immediately and so vigorously laid hold on the centres of life and activity,
and faced on new principles the problems which defied that Roman
genius of rule and grew more intricate both in spite of and in consequence
of its efforts,
Buildings may be mentioned in this Note which belong to a
later century than Cyprian's, but already in his time many of the cities
were full grown and magnificent, and it is strange to remember how
actively heathen growth was going on side by side with Christian growth.
In most of these towns which lay so thick in that resourceful region
there was a bishop, a stipendiary? staff of presbyters, organized on a
collegiate or quasi-canonical plan of life and work, and a set of deacons
administering the more secular affairs and providing for the monetary
‘needs of the Church. Many of these places have ruins of more than one
Christian basilica, which no doubt succeeded to private halls, secular
rooms, and *fabriez" like Fablan's, which were used in Cyprian's time.
The bishop was everywhere elected by and represented an enlightened
and steadily increasing portion of the community. What his powers
were, sole or joint, we have seen. He had been brought up Like every
educated Roman within constant sight of the administration of firm
justice, of revenue, of military force, within sound, and possibly in the
practice, of eloquence and argumentation, amid the publicity of the wildest
pleasures, and with his precise place assigned him in the body politic,
under the name but without the least substance of Nberty. The only
liberty known was that which was being re-formed under the new consti-
tution which he himself represented.
"The £pticopus Christianorum was called sacerdos, "There were many
sacerdotes in every town: flamens, pontiff, ministers of the beautiful
temples, and countless altars, The higher of these were great civilians
and generals who officiated from time to time for an hour of their secular
day. Some were hereditary keepers of the gods’ homes and of the gods
themselves; some were nominated and lived partly by endowments, partly
1 Effe to 04 34-41 39 81 See note 3 00 p. 305 rupe
37
THE CITIES. 579
From Tiixisa, which lay on the coast between the two, came m®novs, Poh
the Bishop Venantius ; from Hippo Petrus, and from Utica Aurelius. Ἐπὶ
From Carthage, looking due cast across the glorious gulf, a good for τ Pisin
way beyond the eastern spur of the Horns of Ben Gournin, Secundinus.
would discern his own Carros, with its fashionable
later on of Donatist savagery.
Out of sight on the far side of the same eastern promontory lay
NEAPOLIS, the north horn of the gulf then τὸς τ eer τς
Hammamet—an African Bay of Naples. Ir was a Carthaginian factory,
the nearest African harbour to Sicily, captured by Aguibodes and by ek
Piso, and an early ‘Colonia.’ Edrisi saw great ruins of it, but they hay
all passed into the mean carcase of the Arab town.
Its Bishop Junius was the last who spoke in the Council. He speaks
of the carlier conciliar decisions as ‘what we once for all sanctioned’,’ and
in each of the former Council-lists his name appears—and as a senior.
Some element of cither distance or lateness enters into the list of A.D, 257,
ἃς the Tripolitan Bishops are all together at the end.
Southward a few miles, between Mount Zaghouan and the sea, was Musician
SEGERMES, only ruins still to us, not identified until 18845. Nicomedes Asean
was one of the seniors,
‘The tiny Oued Meliana, with its deep torrent channel, drains into the ΤΑ͂Ν
Lake of Tunis a fertile waste once thick with cities. In its upperdaleit ^.
skirts on the south-east the site of GREAT THUFUREO®, one of Pliny's idis)
“eight Colonics,’ founded by Julius, improved by Commodus. One of
2 Sentf. Eph 49, 7% 4% * Quod semel cenmimus, Sewti, Epp. Soe"
* Semi. Epp. 24. On form of name 86. ar
see p. 421, n. 3. 5 Senet, Epp. 9—C. f. £L. vin, LU
5 Thucydides vil. zo. He calls Nea-
polis a Καγχηδονιακὺν dprépu ; that is,
‘not one of the Emporia proper which
‘were the towns on the little Syrtis from
‘Thenw, though those between the two
Syrtes are sometimes understood in
the word. Moreelli thought Neapolis
wf Tripoli was here meant, since it
follows the other Tripolitan sees and
Lepts Magna. Tissot holds this Nea:
polis to be only a new quarter of Leptis
Magna. Still the onder is remarkable;
although geographical arrangement does
THE CITIES.
of clergy discipline in the Geminian family, One of that same family was
now its bishop.
1n this same Lower Medjerda Valley, threaded by the great Road, Sa...
were SiciLiisa! in whose extended ruins are relics of good architecture; flowin.
and MEMBRESA, of Punic origin, a difficult unfortified hilltown?, over- her ine
hanging an elbow of the rivery—the key both to its upper valley and to Dime ie
the rich agricultural vale of Vaga. Here it was that, aided by the tt!
invincible north-west gale of the region, Belisarius dispersed the rebel
forces of Stotzas, Near Membresa was the yet unfound AVITINAE, The
three bishops were Sattius, Lucius, Saturninus, A Do-
At VAGA, seated on the high western end of the tract which it com- "yr P oi
mands, there were no doubt traces of the large Italian population of it
which Sallust speaks, connected with its great trade in other commodities [hune |
besides corn. It had been specially made over to Masinissa, and became «o« «n
the principal centre of Numidian commerce. eel
‘Through the Upper Medjerda Valicy, abore Membresa, road and river ima Vaga.
Tun together until near the Numidian frontier, passing Vicus Augusti, is
which some would identify with that otherwise unknown VICUS. C/eSARIS, e 48
which sent Januarius to the Council It lies some twenty-six miles !
onward, and aficr yet another twenty-nine is BuLLA Reata, which tps a
sent Therapius. er ia
“King's Bulla) with its massy Punic Byrsa (lately pulled down to p
metal the railway), with crag-defended plateau and a vast water-storage*, "n
with marshes below prolific of eel and barbel, with hot sulphur baths, assem
sweet fountains reverently enshrined, theatre and amphitheatre, covers itp. joa,
many acres with its runs. It was, like Samaria, "The Head of the ^
Fat Valley.
North of Bulla the mountains rise to a height of 3,326 feet at Ain The.
Draham. Thence the ‘smiling hills of the Tell’ fall in terrace and
slope to the sea level. And due north, where the bewilderingly fertile Pr» jt
amd feverous valley of Oued-el-Kebir, the antient partition of Numidia
and the Province, enters the sea, lies THABRACA*, on mainland and Fe Vea
he here discovered, and not with the
Henchir Ain Fournoa 130 miles away,
near Zama Regia, But it is mot
demonstrs
ated.
3 AL. Sicilibra, Sicilbra, Sicilippa,
Saliba also lun, Ant. CK tin. Anc.
Fortis ἀ' Urban (1845). p. 11.
5 Ἐν χωρίῳ ἐγηλῷ τε καὶ δυσεύλῳ,
Procop BV. iis 15, ap. Tisoty the
327, with plan.
? Neighbourhood is implied im the
horrid story of the religious ill-usage of
the Membresitan Bishop Salvius by the
people of Aviti, Augustin. c. Ap.
armen. iii, 39, with c. Crescem. iv. 49
ἴω ix. c. 77, and note).
* Dr Carton, Blu. aw. du
Comit! der. Trav. Hist. 89V, p. 312
describes this feature; not only its public
cisterns, bat. p. 147, ‘pas d'habitation,
i modeste (Ot elle, qui ne posnédit de
ces réservoirs On its Punic necropolis
see 14. 1892, p. ἐφ.
© Seutt. Epp. 25.
THE CITIES.
Tibar!, is THIBARIS, to whose * plebs consistens! Cyprian wrote bis $8th.
epistle, to nerve them for the expected persecution of Gallus, The snincs
basilica of their descendants is traceable. The bishop of Thibaris was PP «r-
Vincentius.
zo The Circle of Cirta,
We pass to the heart of Numidia. The Circle of Cirta, as we may
call it, was ἃ unique group of towns. Each sent its Christian bishop to
the Council. ‘Lordly CIxTA/ the tragic capital of the Numidian kings, Yeas ^.
hhas well been thought ‘the noblest site in the whole world.) A gigantic Gomsanting
foursquare pedestal of rock, a cubic mountain (like that of the Apocalypse) sys tl’ gos
touches the surrounding country at one point, islanded otherwise by ‘or tio *'**
atreams. lis precipices grow to a thousand fect in height as the plateau
of the city tilts slowly up, while the ravine bed of the Rummel, spanned
here and there by giant arches of rock, slopes to its beautiful cascades.
Antient epithets for it vied with one another—' the mast fenced city,’
‘the most opulent’ Palaces and temples rimmed the highest edge
where the hideous barrack is now, and left marvellous remains even till
the French came, ‘The most prosaic of races is still clearing away every-
thing that is picturesque. Inscriptions record how many were ils priests,
pontifis, augurs and flamens.
Very antiently it had some close bond with surrounding fari, and the
Roman wisdom of colonization is eminent in that it not only allowed the
exemption of so proud a place for a time from proconsular jurisdiction
and even from that of the quaestor, but gave to the four greater pagi
the tie of Colonies, At the same time there was appointed to cach a
prefect of its own, apparently under a *pravfect of the colonies?! The
union certainly existed under Trajan; is not recorded after Alexander
Severus, and perhaps at the time of the Council was becoming needless
Δ Sent, Epps 37+ Thisname together
withan inscription C./,£.vits. Suppit.
i p« 1486, n. 15435) fix the place but not
its name, GENIO THIBARIS AUGUSTO
SACRUM k P THI. DÀ. Tissot calls it
Thibu. It ie within Ryzacena.
2G, L Loy 694a, ὅταν, 1978 See
Mommsen's article C. 4. £ verte ἐν
p. 618. The title conferred shews
that they were not reduced to the mak
of prefecture ; end so, 1 think, the
appointment of a prefertvs no longer
conveyed the idea of chastisernent for
revolt as antiently in the ease of Capua,
cc, Yor was still desirable as a security.
? M. Tissot, vol. ti. p. aen, says:
“Une Inscription de Miley prouve que
{ia confédération] fat disseute, probable-
ment dans Je cours ow very la fin du
tur sitcle.’ I enderstand the iascrip-
tion to chew that the Confederation wax
still active at the date of the inscription,
THE CITIES. 585
Cirta!, seventy-five Roman miles from it (Zt. Ané.), on the road to Sitifis,
and close on the frontier of Mauretania. Remains of its Christian basilica jum,
lie among temples, theatre, and triumphal arch (to Severus, fulia Domna- -
and Caracalla). Its bishop at the Council was one of the juniors who
voted acquiescently—Pudentianus. tts dl 33»
its bishop rather copious and rhetorical in a short space”. Ἢ
GAZNUFALA (depraved from Gadiaufala, like Zaritus from Diarrhytus). v6 48,484
It was ‘two days’ journey from Cirta/ as Procopius says, being about 4$ Gelinftle
miles from it on the road to Carthage. A curious inscription on a ἵν An
native veteran, who had campaigned in Britain, fixes the place and the
spelling? The Bishop Salvian based his easy inference on the self-evident ἤν μα
proposition * Hiereticos nihil habere constat
Tocca, Unfound. It was 46 miles from Ilgilgilis 6o from Cuicul*. orsus,
was ‘near the sea’ It ‘commanded both river and sea'! It was Zeenat
‘divided between the provinces of Numidia and Mauretania.” Ptolemy fiers,
counts it Numidian and Pliny Mauretanian. At the collation of 41r *"-
its bishop was Numidian; in relations with Mileou. Before Huneric,
in 484, its bishop was Mauretanian. Hence scholars have thought of two
cities and two sees, synonymous. But the conditions are fulfilled it we
think of it as a double city, like Buda-Pesth or Mayence, seated on both
banks of the Ampsaga, where that stream, pouring down from Cirta,
becomes, at its confluence with Oued Endja, the boundary of the
two provinces. Their bishop now was Honoratus, who appears as a
+ Caiculi (It. Ant) is ablative. CK — * Tissot (it. 37) ἐν warrant for the
inser. of 4.0. 256 RESP CVICVL DEYOT,
Cagrat, Bull, Arch. Com, Trav, hist.
1892, p. 3oj. Cuiculom ἧς not really
Δ Le Vite d Sau.
ay but Cagnat,
Bulk. det Ant. de France, 889, p« 179
gives ‘Miles morans Coieis ann v et
* Tab, Pent, ef. Tissot, tr- pp. ati,
an.
finding of the distances (I cannot quite
verify thew) of the Peutinger Table,
which make it at least out of the question.
that Tucca should have been where
Wilmanns places it, onthe mouth of the
Ampsags, He speaks of the city as on
the left bank (p. 413), and thinks there-
fore the boundary shifted. But the
difficulty removes itself at the explicit
statement : Rewenmat. Anouymi Com
gregh: ‘Civitas Tucs qux juxta mare
fessem" [i vi] This juste mare
maps and Pliny's "impositam marl
et Homini" (A. A. V. 1 2) are fulfilled
by the strategic position,
THE CITIES. 587
"They had nearly if not quite finished their permanent stone camp at
Lambicsis, having occupied two temporary ones before, when Hadrian
visited them in July A.D. 128. He delivered to them a great allocution
which stands recorded on a special monument He speaks of the
number of their works as having in no degree impaired the excellence of
their manceuvring.
The town long remained a Vicus only. It was made ἃ Municipium.
probably when in A.D. 207 Numidia was made a Province. Its citizens.
were enrolled in Trajan's own tribe Papiria.
Severus claimed to be a great reformer, and soldiers held him to be a
great corraptor, of military life, Legionaries could not contract valid
marriage before, but from him they received the jus conwdd? with cies
Romane and leave to reside with their wives’, At Lambiesis are many:
traces of the working of the plan, in monuments to the sons and daugh-
ters of soldiers, in the curious elsewhere unknown fact thar their children
‘by Roman citizen-women were enrolled in a special tribe Polla of thelr
own, and not in Col/ima, the tribe of the spurious, and particularly in
the gradual covering of the great spaces of the camp itself by large build-
ings,—among them numerous scholar for the co/legia and military clubs.
It is palpable that the legionaries were allowed to live in the town.
Around us now spread miles of fragments with immense remains of
publie buildings, a * Praetorium ' constructed for military pomps beyond.
our conceiving, arches, temples of singular but somewhat
irregular
beauty. The triple shrine of /£sculapius, Serapis and Silvanus is on a.
fantastic yet most elegant ground plan. We know the very years of most
of these buildings. They were all erected, whether in the camp or city
(except perhaps the Capitol) by the Legion itself, and the temples them
selves were retained under military guardianship. 1n the camp was no
temple. It will not be thought surprising that these and many more
particulars of the life of the great head-quarters are known to us when it
rianns Aug | Pontif Max Trib | Pot vit
Cos 11 vium | n Carthagine.
Mil P CXCI | DCCXxX stravit | P. Meti-
lio | Secundo leg | Aug Pro Pr| Cos
Desig | Por [Teg n Aug] 1€. ΔΖ.
vir 8. 30884.)
dg αν Aug has been erased and re-
stored, a. fact which will be explained
presently.
1 C. J. L. virt bm, agg.
* Herodianus, ii. $. Papinlan and
Uipian, in and just after Severus’ time,
speak of their ssatrimowinm as if it
were in all respects juotum. Digest
3B % BEES 3, 45.) 81 40, 17, 15.
But to assert that their children by
foreign wives were citizens seems difi-
«αἰ.
See Wilmanns’ essay, giving Momin-
sens views, GL. Le vit i po 985.
Tacape, Sufetula and Thysdrus; Hadrian (we have seen) developed the
most important, that to Carthage.
A favourable station for Christian pioneering, it has been said, and
the remark scems to be borne out by the number and apparently carly
date of Christian inscriptions? from that region.
Procurators managed imperial estates in the neighbourhood. Settlers
on military tenure of knight-service held wide lands, and were protected
with elaborate care. They planted out groups of towers throughout the
domains, with an eye to the raids from Aures.
"The scale and splendour of the place are marvellous: its water-works,
its baths, its drainage. The careful arrangement af its forum and market
with its marble pavement, marble screens, and cloisters, and with
stabling for troops of horses. African architecture like African Latin
‘has marked peculiarities, and the fine temple of Jupiter is an excellent
instance of them, as is also the quadruple Janus, finer than that of Rome,
and again the simple grand basilica with its stately steps and mosaic
floor, exactly contemporary with Cyprian, and stopped, three or four
centuries later, in actual process of conversion into an immense church.
and establishment. Rude Christian capitals lie ready to be hoisted, and
an immense array of monks’ cells in solid masonry has been already
added, together with a bishop’s house and chapel and a baptistry,
the whole defended vainly by the Byzantine ramparts®, The Vandals
were driven back, but the spirit of the dry places returned to his gar-
nished house, and the Arabs sit marketing by thousands in the dust
among their camels, and the débris of the city are spread out for miles.
‘The third of these glorious cities, which we must notice, that was so Coloni
grandly placed to do the work which Rome conceived to be hers in the
wild world, was TMAMUGADI, Timgid—' the African Pompeii."
Verecunda was a fourth not so much known to us nor represented at
Carthage (a see? Morcelli).
Thamugadi was founded in A.D. too with a truc soldicr's cyc by
L. Munatius Gallus, Trajan’s legate and proprzetor, to control the adits to 19^...
the very heart of Aures by the veterans of the Thirtieth Legion, Ulpia
Cal.
3. See Schwarze, pp. 63 fhe
? 4 gratefully acknowledge the cour
tesy of the Abbé Délnpart, the accom.
plished antiquarian and self-devoted
parish priest of Tebessa, of the Com-
mandaat des Armes, and the Command
ant des Indigtses, Captains Martineas
and Empiroge. One of M. Délapart’s
most singular discoveries is the mosale
plaque of 2 cross placed within an apse
between A and 0, which he found some
feet beneath the altar of the basilica,
‘where he expected to find some token
of consecration. For fme illustrations
of Lambeesis, Theveste and Thamugalis.
see Mr Graham's Paper om the ‘Retains
‘of the Roman Occupation of N. Africs,
THE CITIES. $91
on through the wide strewn ruins of MASCULA, on the north-east spur of Colonie
Aures, a critical strategic post, then and now commanding one of the ἀμήν,
main passes of Aures, and covering the direct route from the Tell to D f+
Sahara ; to begin with, a great corn and cattle station? am
It communicated with BAGAt near the salt lake. Bagai and Timgad Boral doar
the Donatists claimed as all their own. Augustine makes one
sarcastically
of them argue ‘And ours too is a "Great Congregation.” What do you
iini of Thamuyade and Bagai'? Here was held their Coandl of fs! s
gio Bishops in A.D. 394^. Donatus the Circumcellion leader was a 4.
native of Bagai, and here were perpetrated many of the horrors of the
faction
‘These places were all revived into Byzantine fortresses by Solomon,
but were never likely to hold a country, whose cities had failed, by mere
force of arms, Yet they seem all to have retained their Christianity long
after the Arabs had exterminated it elsewhere.
‘The bishops of Cedias, Mascula and Bagai were now Secundinus,
Clarus and Felix?.
Facing from Lambesis towards Sitifis, capital of Mauretania, 21 Rep.
mountainous miles would bring you to LAMASwA, the last station but one <amatoae
‘on the Numidian side of the border, a great depot for the products of the plunges
fertile plains beyond, A great inscription on the distribution of water, Lanes,
probably for the use of the numberless oil-mills, is an instance of the Lamasbas,
perfection with which the Roman farmers were attended τοῦ. Pusillus, a Stroma,
rare name, was their bishop. mes
‘Westward and then southward, about 62 kilometres more, the road
from Lambsesis sweeps round down the stern deep defile which the
Romans called ‘Hercules! Shoe’ and the Arabs, in amazement at the
Donatus et Navighus feernmt. Cotienses
pecatoren Mommsen's suggestion. ὧν
patre. domini (Le. in deo) defunctus qui
τ seems unnatural. Sehwarre, p. 69,
quotes for Dominaz Deus (of Christ)
C. J. L. YU. i, n. 1079: Zn nomine
dDemimi dei nostri atyue raüNiforis
mo xm; C Δ LOvHn dom
S429 Jn nomine Ὁ Domini Deis and
on Sermo for Aor Tert, ado, Pras.v.
1 would therefore emend simply Jw
tre Domini Dal qui ext sermo Dii,
“in the Father of the Lord God Who
is the Word of God,"
Ὁ Masqueray has a treatise Amines
anciennes de Ahenchels, Yaris, 1879.
Cf. Schwarte, p. 73.
*. Aug. Baar, B. ow Philo xxi. af
* Aug, Confr. Crescom. Donat. iv. τῷ.
4 Neander, vol. rit p» a71 (Bohn), on
the question whether Donatus a Casis
Nigri and Donatos Magnus were one
and the samc, says "Optatus scoms to
have knowledge of only one Donatus”
Optatus exprowly distinguishes therm,
lib. Hi. init. and says, ' Donatus Bagai-
sis collected the ^insana multitudo!"
? Somn. App. τὰ, 79 14. Mis ine
teresting that from the n.
of Cedías, Haga, Mascula, Theveste
come the inscriptions with * Deo tundes,”
* Sont, Epps, Cot Even Le
E
But not amusement only was provided, whether fierce or luxurious.
"The courts indicate elaborate administrations complete upon the spot.
a5 we see in the African mosaics) surrounded by large villes, and partly
sublet to Roman farmers and contractors',
It is evident that this civilization cannot have been carried on without
the co-operation of vast numbers of native tenants as labourers, as well as
poor colonists. ΤῸ them we must ascribe the abundant traces of small
farmsteads in some of the larger and safer valleys. Spots which still are
called ‘Roman Gardens’ of olives and fruit trees seem as likely to be
Berber copies as to be original Roman plantations, which would probably
have borne Roman names,
When Rome grew Christian the mountaineers too were so soaked with
Christian usages that to this day they keep Chrisumas*& They call the
months by Latin names and measure the year, like Christians, by the sun
and not by moons.
Yet these cities were not at last captured by Vandals, but deliberately
desolated by their neighbours the first hour that the invasion called the
garrison a
Yes. Civilization and Christianity were unable to overcome animosity
‘of race and wildness of temper, That is how we putit, Rather—Civili-
zation and Christianity sate helpless, not knowing or thinking how to deal
‘with the prodigious, multiplying masses of dispossessed, impoverished,
E. natives, whom mile by mile soldiers and settlers drove out before
"The Circumcellions had weakened everything long before the Vandals
were accompanied by troops of women. ‘Their numbers were
'here immense—'such herds,’ * such crowds ' o many thousands,’
1 See op. Masqueray, De deren ἢ Moolid, "The Nativity.
^ PP+ $9» 57.
B 38
THE CITIES. 595
Seven miles further Ebba, Orba in the Peutinger Table, ‘Table, miswritten it Que.
seems for Ouna, where the bishop was Paulus’. We thug he ere yn,
“aliquis’ a fall from the faith. Ld
Then Mutia, and then AMMEDERA?, rather more than 19 miles
from Theveste, Great ruins on both sides of the river, quays, great
theatre, five Christian churches, two triumphal arches, one very fine,
Hyginus relates how it was gated and streeted as a camp, and.
we can recognize it
Eugenius speech consists of the four least offensive words of his
fanatical neighbour whom he followed immediately.
go Three Router.
"Three main routes linked the Theveste read to that grand coast line
which, south from Cape Bon, sweeps out the great gulf of Hammamet
and that of Gabes (Tacape), which forms the crescent of the lesser
Syrtis’, and then trends south-east to the great Syrtis (1) The coast
road from Leptis Magna throws off at Tacape, the last of the Emporia,
ἃ great road passing the end of the salt lakes, and working northward
through the highlands, until it meets at Asturas (2) a second road from
Thenz, where the Emporia began; then from Assuras a loop-line ran
to two stations on the Theveste road, Althiburos and Thacia. (3) At
Coreva, higher up on this same road, a third route falls in from Hadru-
metum.
"There was a MUSULA on the great Syrtis, 150 miles beyond Leptis
Magna, between Dissio and ad Ficum, which Tissot makes no attempt
to identify with the see of Januarius Muzulensis. But whymnot? Nothing
but its distance seems against it^,
τὰς (ap. Tim), Urbs Laribus sugli
mediis tutiedms divis Et muris munita:
movi quam condilit ipse Justinisnus
apes
3. Sent, Epp. 47.
3 Bie omm Epp 32.— Aunalleps,
Pr—Ammudam, Ammosder, Corp,
Tusce. (It has yielded 281 inseriptions,
34 of them Christian. See Schwarze,
P. so, on two Christians of the family
uir beating the title famem ger.
pets, se. of Roma and Augustus, in
6th century.)—Ad Medera, Ptat—Ad
Μεύσε, Admedera, Ad Medra, /r. Ant.
—Admedera, Hfggiu.— Αὐμενέρα, Prae.
—Metridera, Over,
* Procopius dwells on the crescent,
ie Ff. vk 3: ἐν κὔλαον μηνφειδῷ. 4: ἡ
δόλασφα ἐν arrerg θυ βομένη ἀπψεγγάζεναι
Hoe κὔλσυσο,
5 Sour. Epp. 3a, "Tissot, ti. pp. 228,
Lana (Tissot, τι. Gog f. Pl. xix). Mor-
celli ways readings vary, as Mecera,
Mamea, Muzucha, Murulentis, Moes-
lensis, Mutucemeis. Hartel gives ταν
‘variant in Cyp. ave Monilensis Cof.
Sep, though Riganlt alleges" Murweha
Cot. Cork ond Hiolsten*Muzucs On
the other band the only reading Ín list
38—2
THE CITIES. $97
ἐἐψ τα τ τό γενα τινε placed Ri Niel oe te chus GER
which Apuleius had triumpbantly pleaded for himself on the charge of
mayic employed in winning his wealthy lady was tried there though all
the parties belonged to Oca. Travellers have seen its amphitheatre, the
anle ior of ts ἀκρίς cx tediica acd he pla CM DERE A
vast space, apparently never built on, is included in its walls, This may 73% e
be what the Punic name of Sabratoun! is thought to describe—a ' Corn-
Market’ of nations.
‘The Tripolis was at our date somewhat more than trilingual, and the
fusion of its population was never accomplished, any more than that of
its three tongues, Libycized Punic’, Siceliot Greek and Latin.
The Tripolis was held together at least? by an annual council, but so
unsubstantially that Oca about A.D» 70 brought in the Garamantes to help
her quarrel with Leptis.
It is a mirror for colonists who think it policy to be liberally indifferent.
to the religion of nations with whom they dwell, or to the barbarism
which looks across their pale.
‘Thenceforth the drift of the Sahara sand, successfully resisted for so
many ages, was seconded by the drift of Sahara tribes no less multi-
Tudinous*, Protectors like Count Romanus made resistance to them
hopeless. Leptis was destroyed once more by the Ausuritani in A.D, $70,
yet bishops of all three towns appeared in g1t. None however after their
banishment by Huneric in 484. So that the towns sank probably soon
after that to the condition in which Justinian found them, mounded deep
in sand®. His splendid revivals were soon buried again, and of Great
Leptis nothing now emerges but white sea-walls and a ghostly likeness
to Carthage.
‘The self-governing organization which, adverse to war and unifying as
it expanded, had arisen in that antient scene of industrious wealth and
anxious splendour, was the salt of their old world. It could not here
become the seed of the new. That clement in Tripolis was represented
at the Council by Natalis of Oca, who with his own suffrage brought the
proxies of Pompey of Sabrata and Dioga of Great Leptis six or seven
hundred miles, and—as Augustine says—begyed the question®.
1 Which is also ita other Greek name
λλβρότονων, Seyi. Frript. 110. Provp.
dp Edif. vis 4 ᾿Αλλὰ καὶ Ξαβαραθὰν
ἐσειχίσατο πόλι», οὗ δὴ καὶ λόγου ἀξίαν
πολλοῦ ἐκκλησίαν ἐδεέματν.
* Sall, Fug. 78. Sills, δῖε, lil, 286,
writes of their pre-Keman age not with-
vut discrimination. Sabratha tum Ty-
rium vulgus, Sarranaque Leptis, Ocaque.
‘Trinacrios Afris permixta colonos.
? The diffideat partiele is due to
THE CITIES. 599
an ‘arctic landscape under ἃ sky of fire; and set with fathomless lakes.
that shine among the mirage like molten metal. The first and greatest
‘is the mystical lake Tritonis. The traveller crossed only ‘the Mouth”
and passed behind ‘the Lips’=these are the Arab names for the gap
where Sahara comes upon the sea, and for the low north ranges which
fringe it, Sheltered from the August heat of the weird valleys he would
use Roman roads and stations until, a hundred miles beyond Gabes, he
reached Capsa.
Capsa? is but an oasis set in ἃ great breach of the same perpendicular
north cliff which continuing beyond Biakra walls in the salt desert, There
three vast valleys meet from north. north-west and east, and pour streams.
and roads and merchandise out through the Mountain-gate, For from the
days of ‘the Libyan Hercules'—the first Pha:nicians~the city ls warder
of the mountain plateaux of the Tell, and keeps the gate of Sahara and "je
Soudan*, Medieval travellers could still admire its fortress, defences 41, 4.
and masonry; we have only its vast reservoirs and bathing tanks. ‘The
Roman historians were amazed at its lonely greatness, ‘amid immeasur-
able solitudes, as Sallust writes, and at its security *in mid Afric fenced
with sands and serpents’ says Florus. No figure of speech; the French
columns of to-day keep fires burning through their quarters, not to scare
the cerastes, but for instant cautery?.
Marius is still a legendary hero there on account of his preternatural
capture of the fortress in mere lust of battle, The Christians of the
district (Pliny observes that it is more of a clan (mado) than a city*) had
no bloody contest with Islam, but held their faith longer than others with
a quictude which is described as still characteristic of them.
Donatulus, who went to the Council, was? a junior bishop consecrated
as we have seen in A/D. 252, and it is rather amusing to notice that he
begins his brief speech with * Et ego semper sensi.’
Far away, quite at the western end of the same vast valley of the salt
lakes, the Roman military road swept dowa south through another grand
ΕἸ Kantara, and onward for some 50 miles to reach the
thence it returned up to Biskra, and ran east under
Aures and the long vertical cliffs which rim Sahara It reached the
Chott-cl-Djesid, embraced it and went on to Gabes,
This military road was the south boundary of the Roman Province, Gemelle
here called Limes Gemellensis, for the oasis which miade its corner was fp «Dom,
an.
? Morceili dreams of two Capasalso. — ? Bruce did mot find this necessary.
"Sour. Epp. 69; Capw, H. lomit Playfair, p. 286.
the frequent statement that Capsa wis — ^ ,ex reliquo numero non civitates
the treasure city of Jngurtha, because i
Wilmanns, C. 4 L vnl b p. »»
reasonably questions the accuracy of the
text of Strabo.
THE CITIES. 6or
From either Thelepte to Sufetula! is about 37 miles. The bishop of
SUFETULA, Privatianus?, came from a town unlike any type we have de-
scribed. It was the very seat of wealth and of security, It was not even
without a single Arab structure ever having been raised among them,
and its range of three tall temples", side by side, in golden limestone,
with their great gate and cloisters, was of unsurpassed beauty, These
| are of the Aurelius and Verus age, while a great triumphal arch is fifty
years later than the Council, dedicated to Maximian and Constantine
‘There are many temples traceable, and many churches.
| The destruction of the Christian * Tyrant’ Gregorius by Ibn Saad was.
ἃ crucial event, which closed the Christianity of this region twelve cen-
turies and a half ago.
‘The country below and all west of Sbeitla to the sca is onc monu-
mental test of what Islam has done for civilization. The crystal river of
the city, ‘copious as Zaghouan,’ and many streams besides lose them-
selves in the sand, The now trackless, treeless, scorching plains were
once alive with ‘villages* that touched each other, says the Arab bis-
torian, along infinite woods. The soil is all strewn with hewn stones.
Dry fountains and broken stations dot the wayside, Roman oil mills
stand with no olives in sight, save some glorious giant which the Arab is
burning piecemeal. The very soil, no longer bound together by roots,
is washed from the hills.
For all this denudation, physical and moral, Islam is to be thanked,
yet some earlier thanks arc due to Christian sects which, unlearning all
that Cyprian and Augustine had taught, sank for lack of charity into a
controversial and political religion, and armed opinion with material
forces
Sufetula may, to judge from its sound, be ἃ daughter of Sures, and
Jorinus of Thelepte are the names of sign. Yet this division of styles, taken
two ofticers at Lambesis. C, ££ vit. with the thet thet the great’ entrance
d. 3868, 2860. is not centric to the fejade, seem to me
Ὁ *Probabiliter Colonia’ C. ZZ. vr. τὸ indicate extension at some period.
i p. 4o. But how established? Not ‘Two beautifil drawings of Bruce's have
so in rim. Ant. norim any Inscription. been reproduced by Sir Lambert Play-
C. £L. Yit. 1p. 40, Suppl iv perio, fair, p. rg. while Me Alex. Graham
Tis people called themsctves Sufetu- (Their in Twmizis) has two interesting
Jentes as well as Suffetulenses, C, 7, £ — sketches and a restoration of the Triple
vin. L 933. "Temple.
+ Sentt. Epp. 19. 4 This word of Ton Khaldoun, their
4 The (wo side temples of the Corin- own historian, seems to me to account
thian onfer, flanking 2 middle which is — for Wilmanny surpeise at finding so few
‘Composite, are ssid to be one large de- — imeriptions among so many remiss.
THE CITIES.
laid out city; one of its traceable great gates very perfect, with wall
and inscription adoring Caracalla ; theatre '
fine Corinthian portions of its temple. Like Sufes, its two names shew it
to be of earliest Punic settling and earliest Roman resettling,
Route (2), Oca to Assuras by Theme.
And now at Assuras swept in another road which Natalis of Oca
might have travelled, if (not turning inland at Gabes) he the coast
beyond Thens: and turned inland to Thysdrus. He would by this route
pass by sees as many as between Capsa and Assuras.
The little acropolis of THEN rises sternly over the sea, the northern- Guiwin
‘most of the Emporia. Its port silted up. Its solid city wall two miles in Aureus
Circuit; nothing within but small stones and potsherds The great ζέστα,
mecropolis marks its antiquity of settiement, and in the reign of Augustus vm.
it still coined money bearing its old name Tainat in Punic lettering. Yet ign,
the name is thought to be the Berber of * date palms Loi ad
Its bishop was now Eucratius—a man of precision and violence.
“Blasphemy of the Trinity” ἐσ his phrase for heretic baptism.
The great foss which in A.D. 146 the Romans made to bound their
first province ran over the continent from the river Tusca over against
"Tabraca, and it just took in Then.
From Thysdrus (it sent no bishop to Carthage), at its star of roads,
with amphitheatre almost rivalling in size, and studied as if to excel the
grandest known, a straight thirty-four Roman miles in two stages would
bring our Natalis to GERMANICIANA. So stands the Itinerary of An: Germani-
tonine?, Many ruins about; no verifying inscription. It is this place
which is commonly assumed to have sent Bishop Inmbus to the Council®,
Tt was of course a different place from Antik. GERMANICIANA, whose
col. Asvuribus, C. Z. Ly viri. le 631i
ab Assuras, Sout, Kp 68; plebi
Asuras consistenti, Cypr, Af. 6s.
‘Graham and Ashbee, p. 164, name the
plain Bled-ewSers, (ha trace of As
sums.)
? Then(x), CZ L Yi. i; n. 399:
Plin. Trin. Ant. Θένα, Θαῖνα, Strab.
Θέαιναι, Ptol, ἀπὸ Bérur, Seman. App
Greece, Tenitaaus, coll. qi t, hotil. 4R-
Civitatis Thenlib, yw. Bp. Gap (sp.
Wilmanns}. Es beam Thamat, ‘of
the people of Theo, Panic Inscr.
Acad. d. nzerr. Jan. 1o.
+ Tissot, τις ps gi.
Abbir Majex (coll. 421)
Cellense (Municipium Jalisnam Philip-
pianum Abbir Cellense) oe Cella (Ag.
Epp.) are one city; Abbir 411, 484,
Abbir Germaniciana,
THE CITIES.
best age; undisturbed sepulchres, beside a stream still called Ousapha ;
identified by inscriptions and answering to the itinerary. Lucius, bishop,
speaks with a quiet piety. ἄν
Twenty-three Roman ides to Segro, and the road sweeps west fpi Bos
twenty more to ZAMA REGIA, for from Aqua. Regiae to Assuras it circles zona yu
by the high valleys round some very lofty plateaux and mountain heads.
‘There was not an African or Roman in Africa who did not hold the
field of Zama to have determined, as Polybius clearly saw? it must do, the
dominion not of Libya or Europe, but of the world. ‘The warring powers, 34
the fortresses and genius of the commanders, and the prize contended for Pie.
bad *trified former knowings/ But Zama has little to shew-—very broken
ground, an cminence among eminences; its old work very solid*, and
abundant evidence that at our epoch the place was populous, rich and
artistic.
Marcellus? was the bishop. He put the controversy in a nutshell,
Another ten miles completed this cross-country route, if we may call it
40, from Then to Assuras. Thence the Theveste road to Carthage.
Route (3). Ova by Thene and Hadrumetum to Carthage.
Another perhaps easier way to Carthage was open to the traveller
from Oca when he had reached Then. He might go on from Thysdrus
to Hadrumetum, either direct or by Leptiminus,
fixed upon as one of the two residences of the Governor of the Byzacene.
Tt had sided at once like its larger namesake with Rome when she ap-
peared on the ground and reaped its advantage, in being a free and
exempt town for ever,
Demetrius the bishop* merely turns the whole question under dis-
‘cussion inte an assertion,
Ants als Oar
Zonar. (sp. Tissot), tt. p. 573. Found
only in 1884. Baal Useppán, "citizen
οἵ Vuppi Panic Inser. Aond. dor Jn:
scriptions, Jan. 1890.
3 Polyb. xv 9. ἅν
3 This agrees with Sallust, Jug. 96,
who says it was ‘magix opere quam
matura munita."
2 Senet, Beg gy.
* Coine until Tiberius Aéeri (Phoe-
Tian) then Are. Leptis (Mew
Procop.) until μιαρά added in the second.
Leptis
in Tissot's Index, not antient).
Δ Witmanns misreads what is said of
this in. Stadiasmus, ns if the port had
THE CITIES. 607
and Gor and Thuburbo Majus into Carthage}, striking the Theveste road
usually at Coreva.
6. Mauretania.
‘The proém of the Council says that there were assembled at iv
* Bishops very many, out of the Province Africa, Numidia,
Mauretania seems to have been represented, capris calo Pio edit
half share in the bishop of Tucea, only by the bishops of BURUC and Jedes Pr
Nova, Wilmanns thinks Thubunac* might be claimed for Mauretania, Det. «vv
"but does not claim it. Whatever the reasons in favour, they are not the
same as for Tucca.
BUxUC. There are independent reasons for believing Quictus* to be
wrongly read for Quintus, and Quintus to be the correspondent of
Cyprian’s seventy-first epistle. Quintus was a ian, ‘ our col-
Teague established in Mauretania, and if so BURUC was a Mauretanian
see, which from other considerations also is more likely than not*.
As for Nova, two bishops, cach styled Nobensis, both of Mauretania, tip.
from different cities, presented themselves before Huneric in A.D. 484, πα
and were banished. One of them, Mingin, barbarous mame, died in
exile’. Also a bishop from one of them assisted in A.D. 411 at the Col-
lation of Carthage.
There is no African Nova except in South Egypt, but two cities called
OrribUM Novus are in Mauretania. One of these is too far, only It Am
62 Roman miles from Tangiers, 1613 from Carthage.
The other is near Maaliana and only about 210 miles beyond the Prt end
Numidian frontier, ‘This may be the Nova of our very explicit bishop
Rogatianus.
γ. The Cities Unidentified.
{Pip tse aver. complete an far ax was Is up το rias: ἃ ls pombe tha fresh Mextifica-
tious have leen conjectured er pewwed vince, E. F. Bunge.
It only remains to add the names of the sees which yet await dis-
covery and identification, The disinterment of inscriptions alone could
1 Route, Tissot, n. p.gyg. Tab. Peut. Mauretanian Busca, and the Burugiaten-
Bibi: to Onellana (Zaphouan) 46 miles,
‘Onellana to Thuburbo Majax #5.
3 C. 4. L. VI. i. p. 453
3 Note on Quinrus appears p. 363
‘before the Third Council.
© Epp γι, pA n. Duet Epp. 27
‘ass. have and editions attest *Boruc"
aml *Burug.” It bs no way imposible
That these should be Intinised as Rureca,
Burngia, and that Piolemy's Deiges,
ais Episcopus of A.D. 413 (Labbe, itt.
228. m) may belong to it. — Leontius
Borceniis, A.n. 484 (Labbe, v. 263) ix of
Numa. Rigault has Buruch, Baline
Baruch,
"πη. Epp. 6o, ‘a Nova” Is
Labbe, v. 268 5, per stands for peregre;
sec also 269 », ii. 3360. Nobensis;
so Nobabarbareatis, Nohagerzesniensis,
S. CYPRIAN'S DAY IN KALENDARS. ότι
Cyprian his friend Cornelius, who had died im June 253. The change
was made at Rome, and it is notable that the Pope was placed on
Cyprian's Day, not Cyprian transferred to his; but the name ef Cornelius
is placed first.
This is what we find in the Leonian Sacramentary and in a kalendar
‘of the fourth or fifth century from Mss. once at Grasse and Avignon.
(Note 2)
"The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, commemorated in the
West the recovery of that precious relic from the Persians by Heraciius in.
AD. 628, The date of the introduction of the Festival ls unknown, but it
‘was kept on the 14th September, as if traditionally the day on which the
cross was reverected. The addition of that commemoration, usually in
the first place, is the next change in the observance of the day, This we
‘sec in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentarics as they stand. (Avie C)
Fora long time after these, which have the appearance of having been
neatly re-edited, kalendars shew themselves to be copied carefully from
older ones by the perpetuation of the word omer after the observance
had become universal, and of Karthagine after Carthage had ceased to
be. This continues, though diminishingly, until quite the end af the
tenth century. (iVote D.)
From this period the local origins of the commemorations dis-
appear. They are at home everywhere. But at the very same time
singular instances occur of the saints themselves too from
the kalendars, This does not, however, mean that they disappeared from
the Offices, although it shews the increased appreciation of the Exalta-
tion. (Note κ᾿)
But all the time the Celebration of Holy Cross Day was growing in
popularity and observance, and was also of civil importance as the unre-
formed Quarter Day. The commemoration of Cornelius and Cyprian on.
the same day became inconvenient, and began to be moved to various
days. The first to move it was Cardinal Quignon in the Reformed
Breviary of 1535, which was allowed to be used by secular clergy who
desired it. (Licence of Paw! PP. II], Feb, §, 1535.) He moved it on to
the next day, the 15th. (Note Y.)
England throughout had the same usage, but with a curious
work for future confusions. Tn the Sarum Breviary Calendar, 1331 (as in
the Roman Missal of 1477), Cornelius and Cyprian are though
their commemoration is provided for in the Office itself. Perhaps this
was for typographical reasons, but even so it shews that Holy Cross Day
had quite overshadowed theirs, And this had occurred in earlier kalendars,
English and foreign. Nevertheless the Ambrosian Missal still exhibited
the old order—the Saints first. (Nose 6.)
The ordinary entry then has now become XVIII Kal. Oct, Kxaltatio
Stee Crucis SS. Cornelit et Cyprian, and so remains until the Council of
"Trent, after which, in 1570, the new Roman books appear and remove
39-2
S. CYPRIAN'S DAY IN. KALENDARS, 613
Each of these three conditions supplied a fair argument, and probably
each had its effect :—!We must have the 14th for Holy Cross Day, and
“there are abundance of old kalendars which have no mention of S.
“Cyprian on that day. Even if it is hit feast we are bound to move him,
“We had better move him, according to precedent, and not arbitrarily, to
‘the next S. Cyprian on the 2th. And in all probability those two
“Cyprians are but one.”
‘This was what the Commissioners under Parker did. They left Holy
Cross Day paramount on Cyprian's true festival, and translated Cyprian
by himself to the 26th. At any rate they substituted a true saint for an
intolerable legendary wizard.
‘We said that this enquiry was not trivial, not merely an illustration of
the nature of entries in kalendars, but had somewhat of the spiritual to
exhibit.
We have seen the reverence with which such entries had been made by
Cyprian himself (Z4. 12. 2; £f. 38 3); we have seen the way in which
his own commemoration was welcomed in other countries. After that,
we have seen the passing away of the original local setting in fa
new interests. But the instance in question shews also
another Church, then gradually pushed of by an i
of little os no moral power but of much superstition, and finally
into à mere application for patronal help.
persistence of nature against which the Church needs all her energy.
Nom A.
© Mactyroieginme Eccleshe Africeme (Moscelll, Africa Cheiatiama, vol. τιν
p. an.
xvin Ael. Od, Carthapine S. M. Cypriawi Epise.
© Deucitio martirum (sp. Th. Moramses, Cireneyr. v. F< Ste P^ 633)
VPncler. Kalowiar.)
XVI KT. Ontob, Cypriani Africe Rome cabratur im Catinti,
Maratori, La. Rom. Vat. 1. €. 39 n- (c), makes the unhappy conjectare *in
postremis verbis fortasse excidit nomen Comelii Papee' ín which, ales, De Rossi
and Mommsen have followed, the intter dreaming (ap. eir. p. 63g m) thee
celebeitur tony be a corruption of Cornelii
© Micsafe wirt seowmdum regwiant denti uideri dictnm Mosarales (ed. Can.
Ximenes A.D» 1509) hus fo. ccelsais. (verso) the missa ἦν Mate Sancti Cipriani
without. Comelins, and fo. ceclxay (versa) amatis samcir Cruci (So abo a.
dee 1788, ΒΡ. 270, 274: Migne, £31. Moc. 1. ¢ $96, 848.)
"The kalendar has a mass of late entries,
S, CYPRIAN'S DAY IN KALENDARS. GIs
But it is à. question whether the error had not ἃ remarkable permanent result.
in the Roman post-tridentine books, sec above and ete t infra.
The Gregoriam Sacramentary, Moratori, 11. e. 189
xvitt Aulendas Octobris td eit xiv die Montis Septem,
Natale Sanctorum. Corneli et Cypriani.
Leos cem die XV. dicti weniis Septembri
Fxalaatio Sancte Crucis.
[How long the association with Cornelius was in spreading from Rome is
possibly exemplified in the Fetus Marmoreum S. Eccl. Nospolitane Kalen-
darium, which is given in Lesley's note on Zitury. Mézarab, Migne, 1. ς, 855.
xim ()) P.5. Cipr. at exalt. Sce Cruci]
© Fetustius Occidentalis Ecclesia Martyrelogiom D. Hieronymo a Cassiodoro,
Beds, Walfrido, Notkero, aliisque seriptoribus tributum, Quod nencopandum este
Romanum a Magno Gregorio deseriptum, ab Adone hudatum, Proximioribus
saxulis prxteritum et expetitum non leviora arguments suadent, Franciscus
Maria Florentinis nob. Lucensis ex «no presertim, ac Patria Majoris Ecclesie,
de, integre vulgavit. Lucm, MDCLXVII.
xvin Kal. Ociobris. Exalratio Sancte Creo. Meme tn Ciiterio Via
Appia matalis Corneli E pies... éu Africa cibtnte Cartagine matalir
S. Cypriani Episcopi [? cert. vii, vill, EC.)
twhestiztimum S. Hieronyrs: pre, nomine insignitum, ed.
Dey Migne, P. Z. & XXX. €. 473: cent. pa pente priate
Retract. in Act. App. c. 1)e
xvin Kal. Oct, Evaltetio Semet Crucis. Rowa via Appia tn vmeterie:
* ‘Romanum Paroun;! 90 called by Sollier a3 the source of Ado; ' Vetus
Romanum," Rosweyd; "wenerabile et perantiquum martyrologium ' Ado, who
first edited it, having foand it at Ravenna; given by the Roman pontiff cuidam sto
epincopo'' at Aquileis. (Cent. viii or end of vii-)
xvi A’ Octob. Roses Cornelii episcopti et mertyris Certhagine Cypriani
episcopi tt Martyris, Éixallatio Sta Crucis ab Heraclio imperatore.
à Porvis Hierorylmam reportate quamdo at Remo lignus safuliforum.
Crucis à Sergio Papa imvontwn ab omni fopuls veweratur,. (Had
Rome a rival Cross?)
© Martyrovegive Vetus ab annis circiter mille sab nomine Hicromymi com-
(If this implies knowledge that Coeselizs was not a martyr it represents some
much earlier source.)
LIST OF BOOKS QUOTED.
Feespat, Charles Émile. Les αὐ leur. =
WE ora Gyn gh Ene — m
Fi ————
der Zeit νου August borum MM : ope
FRONTEA\ Kalendarium Romanum not antiquius...
Tent At IS EDDIE t MIRATUR 6 peret ‘Verona, 1733.
E Andreas. Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum Antiquorumque
Scriptorum Keclesiasticorum. Venetiis, 1765—81. Fol. 14 vols.
Gams, Bonifacius. Series Episcoporum. Ratisbon, 1873. 4t.
Goak, Jacobus. Lee epe Aes Paris, 1647. Fol.
ae pts piro. ix €
Guusax, H. (S. J.) Le Tombe Apostoliche di em Rama, 1892. 4to.
Grvsaus, is Jag Mouméms S/ Petru Ουδαδοιοίερεαν
HrrxLr, Carl h Conciliengeschichte. Histoire des Conciles...
Tae de Fema par M. Tabbé θείαις, 12 vols Bo Paris
ε
Ἠονοκῖν, Pena Italy and her Invaders. and edition ὁ vols, Ox-
,
HURTER, Heinrich von, Sanctorum Patrum opuscula selecta. (Eniponti,
18081674 1085.
Jarre, Philippus, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum. Lipsive, 1885. 3 vols.
ato,
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Oxford, prep ny a hp 3
Editio nova, p 1882. en ΓΞ
δαὶ Der heili Leben
Pra ura. be EU Yr a PUDE
y Jean Baptiste. Spicilegium Solesmense...,Paris, 1852—58. 4 vols.
va.
vsev, Edward Bouverie. The Come cis of tie eee τῷ Τρ κα σῦν τὰ
J ν A.D, $1, to the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 38:
ETTBERG, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thascius Cácilius ΠΝ
Carthage dargestellt nach seinen Leben und
1831. vo.
HL, Otto. Urs von Karthago und die Verfassung der Kirche.
Góttingen, 1885, 8vo.
‘OBERT, Ulysse, Bullaire du Pape Calixte 1. Paris, 1891. 8vo, 2 vols.
xwscm, Hermann. Tula und Vulgata... leipig, 1 186. Svo.—Das
mae ‘Testament Tertullian’s...mit..,Anmerkungen, ipiig, 187}.
lvo.
'08$1, Giovanni Battista de. Inscriptiones Christiane Urbis Romae
mo culo antiquiore Roma, 1861... 2 vols. FoL—La [ris
Sorterranea Cristiana descritta ed illustrata. Koma, 1864... ep Tor
OUTH, Martin Joseph. Reliquiz Sacra. Oxonii 184648. 5 vols. 8vo-
Auinart, Thierry. Acta Martyrum, Ratisbonee, 1859.
TIER, P. Bibliorum sacrorum Latine versiones antiques seu Vetus
Jíalica... Mheims,1743—49. 3vols. Fol.
HELSTRATE, Emanuel Ecclesia Africana sub Primate Curthaginlensi.
Paris, 1679. gto.
WHEPHERD, Edward John, A First (—fifth) Letter to the Rev. S, R. Mait-
land on the genuineness of the writings ascribed to Cyprian, Bishop
of Carthage, London, 18$2—53. oie
IRMOND, Jacques. Opera varia, Paris, 1696. ς vols Fol.
ἔπεγκννον, Seth William. A Dictionary of Roman Coins. London, 1889.
lvo.
18507, Charles, tion scientifique de la
comparée de is" Province Romaine d'Afrique. DE pain
z2vol& 4ἴο. and
lohann Jacob. Novum Testamentum Grzecum, 1 mcr
ad, ΤΑΥΤῚ T do dads Clementi Romani ad Vir «pila
Codice M Amsteleedami, Svo.
NospswokrH, MC of
"'Chorch of omes. Se Stcond elton)
[X be danh by Bom
jaran; the eri PUE
FEET RU ATUS
71 Nos
ios of Asta Mine,
ar
Ba
ope, 306, τς.
Appendix on Cities and I
ppendix on
why, 434
Baptism by one that ὃν dead, sense of the
oni,
sapi e Name of Christ alone, 398
1o Flin,
337:
Berber Raid J
Biesoun, τας of he verd. 198. n.
Sec Lacerns
Climfabianus, one of tbe Lapeed; tui
enum of p Ἧ 3
Wen ‘came to the Seventh Coun- nut pan
Appendix, $73. suq. Clinical 25, D. 404s Bs
Bona (Pervcation ul Decl), her history, ome
b
Coecitianus the presbyter, 7, 9» 18, 19, 48
IN eurer eh er on δ.
pon le 408, τ the Catholic and
Itramontane
cea sone of Gry ene
Dress, of eed o
ΓΝ
ἔσαν Gi EFE lag up
Eusebius of dates) t4, ni
Pon nan m P 138 te 3, 48. 481 E zi
RUE ας Tr ergo Si gen
TD and n.
; Bwerirus, a eio the promoter of
g =r seh on Ni wd. Nonisnlam, x Td
Novatianin, Mf 143% 4 les lis Evil dr ALIUS
lena quer =, το -
eps 167. ud Ln dum x a A9 ape th Jo
an, 3a, 353. 354.
lei Xp qs as Tp
Kephron, 485, 453
102,103. 107,
n.
of his
ἔασον Mice asina EE Ghent e
13) Ad Donatum, 13, 5qq( 445+
INDEX.
votum consultativum’ im Connell
481, Dy
3Meracins, his title of Pope, »
ΠΥ τον n Sieg. Ἐπὶ Ἢ Coie
whom
with. SEE En of Portus, 169; on
Callistus, "
Hooker, i
Hor, Da taj Rr Re
Cardinal, hs Code of de Uni
Bishop of Midili, 471, n.
, od. pnta "Councils ef), 340
stdols arc τοὶ Cods* (That), το, sgq.
Tadalgence granted by Lucianus to ‘all
Lapsol in the namcof ‘all Confessor,
I τοῦ
Infanc Baptism, 31,195,
mem erri ie ie E
TuiPPclaiou (d Unt) 20,
ions ida
Iremeus, on the Episcopate, rond 451.
&-
Kepiooo £4 de Levis οἱ Ratha,
463,
Lactantius,
pu.
Tapa. 79, sqq.
dms. pats τοῦ, xqqei 185. 900i
jotta mni an)
cael m. See also Visions of
‘Cyprian
mall, s and ἢ.
of Cyp-
Moor μὴ,
33, n. ; 88, 96, n. ig; pue
Peeves (of Numidia), 4
Regen ie dap Mg
theories with. regard.
Morel rmi Prebysdnium,
polations (st £
cx dliseiptine, 155 and n.z 176,
319, 230, sqq.
erre ‘corona, sense of the words,
35 Prishores
xc eS Roman theory, Go. See prime er rry rere τὴν
n
Decius, Valerian
Pe he Changs tthe Apa Cena — Princeps, sense of the word, $97, $38,
posh senor
Peter of po der d Ὧν dy mw; f$,
Poem D BMF MMe t 146,06
321,15 343,5 80,
Prodentias, 2, n.; 7, 0-7 168, πιὰ ς τόρ, τις
404. τι; 4015
Prior Pagptane: {Letter of Cypeiam to), τς nei
esheets τ of ha wat τὴ ας
iri Fe
utes ον bee,
loy friend of Cyprian; the
complied and for
"m
a
Hil
di
Enea Foss T2
Counc oo Beine, Me Oar:
anguments of Ste on
413, 999-4 note on Stephen's
ánnovetur nisi,’ «sr
. dm
|, 497 Me
Subintroduete, 47, $4) ni.
‘Bishop ir G
coe [s n.
"Trinity, Mode (callest ene of the word),
Taylor, Jeremy,
10; n 5
api mni 905,865 A
πῃ,} 270, OH; 371, HM; 373, 00-7 98),