Cyprian the Bishop

J. Patout Burns Jr.

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781134556328
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

This is the first up-to-date, accessible study on the rule of Cyprian as the Bishop of Carthage in the 250s AD. It controversially shows that Cyprian radically enforced the primary emphasis on the unity of the church, interpreting loyalty in the community as fidelity to Christ. It uses cultural anthropology to examine the impact of Cyprian's policy during the Decian persecution. Cyprian attempted to steer the middle ground between compromise and traditionalism and succeeded by defining the boundary between the empire and the church. J. Patout Burns Jr. concentrates on social structures to reveal the logic of Cyprian's plan, the basis for its success in his time, and why it later failed. This book will be of great interest to classicists, ancient historians and sociologists as well as theologians.

1: HISTORY OF CYPRIAN’S CONTROVERSIES

In 248 CE, the Christian community in Carthage elected Thascius Caecilianus Cyprianus its bishop. This wealthy aristocrat, trained as a rhetorician, had become a Christian a scant two years earlier. Since he was still a neophyte, the laity seems to have overridden the objections of a majority of their presbyters in choosing him as bishop.¹ In ascending to office as bishop of Carthage, this Christian “new man” became the leader not only of the bishops of Proconsular Africa but of all Latin Africa, as far west as the Atlantic. At his summons, eighty-five bishops would converge on Carthage; at his prompting, they would speak with a single voice. His episcopate would prove foundational for the development of North African Christianity.

The Decian persecution

In December 249, the Emperor Decius, three months after defeating the Emperor Philip at Verona, and wishing to consolidate his position as well as to secure the good fortune of his reign, decreed that every citizen should join him in offering homage to the immortal gods, whose graciousness secured the peace and prosperity of the empire.² Each person was apparently required to appear before a locally established commission, to testify to having been always a worshiper of the gods protecting Rome and to demonstrate that piety in its presence by pouring a libation, offering incense and eating the sacrificial meats.³ While Decius required participation in the Roman ceremonies, he did not specify the renunciation of other religious practices or loyalties.⁴ Both continuing Christian practice and the clergy’s access to the imprisoned recusants were apparently tolerated.⁵ One of the imperial objectives seems to have been the elimination of the divisions of religious exclusivism.⁶

Christian bishops were targeted for early action when enforcement began in January 250: Dionysius of Alexandria was hunted down,⁷ Fabian of Rome died in prison⁸ and Cyprian of Carthage withdrew into exile.⁹ When imperial commissions were established in various cities during the late winter and spring, many Christians voluntarily complied with the edict by actually offering sacrifice,¹⁰ by using a legal subterfuge, or by bribing an official to obtain the certificate which attested to their having performed the rituals.¹¹ By the time the deadline for compliance with the edict arrived, a major portion of the laity and some of the clergy had obeyed.¹² Those who persistently refused the commissioners’ demand were imprisoned and brought to trial; some were released and others sent into exile.¹³ In April 250, the authorities introduced torture into the interrogations of Christian confessors and deprived them of food, water, fresh air and light in an attempt to force them to comply.¹⁴ Although none were executed, some died under this regimen, the first martyrs of the persecution.¹⁵ Others were worn down by the torture and reluctantly offered the required sacrifice.¹⁶

The repentance of the fallen

While the imperial prosecution continued, the clergy of the city of Rome urged the fallen, both sacrificers and certified, to begin purifying themselves through works of repentance.¹⁷ They announced that the certified, who had not actually sacrificed, would be considered lapsed because they had failed to confess Christ.¹⁸ Reconciliation and readmission to communion were delayed, however, until the end of the persecution, except for the traditional giving of peace to dying penitents.¹⁹ The confessors in prison fully supported the clergy’s insistence on sustained repentance.²⁰

At Carthage, imprisoned confessors and the resident presbyters responded differently to the pleading of Christians who had failed. In expectation of entering into glory through martyrdom, the confessors granted letters of peace to the lapsed, in which they promised to intercede with God and win forgiveness for their sin of apostasy. Once a confessor died as a martyr and presumably entered heaven, the lapsed Christian presented the letter of peace to the clergy requesting or demanding readmission to the communion of the church on the strength of the martyr’s intercession before God.²¹ A group of presbyters decided not to await the end of the persecution but immediately to admit to communion the fallen who had received letters from the martyrs.²² As a result, traffic inmartyrs’ letters soon developed: letters were distributed wholesale, with only the most general designation of the persons who were being recommended.²³ Some of the surviving confessors even claimed that they had been authorized by their fellow prisoners to issue letters of peace in their names after their martyrdom to any of the lapsed who asked for their help.²⁴

The bishop of Carthage, however, refused to credit these letters of peace. He ordered the lapsed to undertake penance²⁵ and insisted that none of the fallen could be admitted to communion before God had granted peace to the church as a whole.²⁶ Cyprian recognized the authority of the martyrs by allowing the presbyters to give peace to any dying penitents who held their letter of intercession.²⁷ Shortly thereafter he extended this concession to all dying penitents, thus bringing his church’s practice into line with that of the church in Rome where the confessors refused to issue such letters of peace.²⁸ Cyprian reminded the impatient, and apparently impenitent, lapsed that while the persecution continued they could immediately re-enter the communion of the church by recanting their apostasy before the imperial commissioners.²⁹ Finally, he pledged that general consultations would be held after the persecution had ended to establish a policy for restoring the repentant to communion.³⁰ Cyprian also began to build support for his position among the bishops of Africa.³¹

In Carthage, the confessors agreed to Cyprian’s directive delaying the reception of the fallen into communion until the end of the persecution. Furthermore, they allowed that the bishop should review the conduct of each of the fallen.³² In a proclamation intended for all the bishops, however, they extended the amnesty to everyone who had failed during the persecution.³³ Cyprian then instructed his clergy to inform the people that no action would be taken before the end of the persecution: the issue concerned all Christians and would require general consultation. Neither the confessors and martyrs, nor even the bishop, he explained, should presume to decide such a momentous and far-reaching question alone. He offered evidence, moreover, of growing support for his more stringent position among the bishops of Africa.³⁴

Cyprian’s firm stand provoked various responses from the lapsed in Carthage. Some, though they held letters from the martyrs, pledged their obedience, agreed to wait for general peace, and asked the support of the bishop’s prayers.³⁵ The opposition, however, remained intransigent, insisting that the bishop had no right to delay the delivery of that reconciliation and communion which the martyrs had already granted: what had already been loosened in heaven could not be held bound on earth.³⁶ Cyprian sharply rebuked the rebels, recognizing a threat to the authority of the bishop and the unity of the church.³⁷

At this juncture, the Roman clergy and confessors, under the leadership of Novatian, intervened forcefully to support Cyprian and his colleagues. They wrote to the clergy and confessors in Carthage and then to Cyprian himself for the first time since his voluntary exile. They asserted that the martyrs had no authority to grant peace to any of the fallen and implied that the presbyters of Carthage had instigated the rebellion.³⁸ Their own practice, the Roman confessors reported, was to deny the requests of the fallen for letters of peace.³⁹ Cyprian immediately distributed copies of these letters in Carthage and throughout Africa, thereby strengthening his position.⁴⁰ Despite the Roman support for their bishop’s position, the rebels in Carthage held their ground.⁴¹

As his exile stretched to a full year, Cyprian worked to gain control of the church, assisted by other bishops who took shelter in Carthage and visited him in his place of retreat.⁴² From among the confessors, he made three new clerical appointments.⁴³ He also commissioned two refugee bishops and two of his own presbyters, most and perhaps all of them confessors, to oversee the affairs of the church of Carthage, to review the merits of those who were receiving financial support from the community, and to identify loyal candidates for clerical appointment.⁴⁴ The work of this commission provoked an open rebellion in Carthage, led by a deacon and backed by five presbyters and a great number of the people.⁴⁵ These clergy threatened to deny communion to anyone who cooperated with Cyprian’s agents, thereby signaling a complete break with the bishop. Cyprian’s commissioners then moved to exclude the rebels from communion.⁴⁶

As Easter 251 approached and the refugee bishops returned to their sees to celebrate the feast, Cyprian’s position appeared particularly bleak. He could count on the support of only three of the eight presbyters remaining in Carthage and of a minority of the faithful laity; he dared not enter the city himself for fear of provoking an anti-Christian riot among the general population.⁴⁷ His Easter letter to the congregation warned that the continued admission of the lapsed and the division it provoked was the last and most dangerous trial of the persecution, which threatened to destroy the church utterly.⁴⁸ In the last weeks of his exile, he then completedthe discourse, On the Lapsed, which was to be delivered upon his anticipated return.

Shortly thereafter, the imperial action had ceased and popular resentment of the Christians had subsided so that Cyprian could return to Carthage and resume direct governance of the community.⁴⁹ His first order of business was a division of the community into standing and fallen,⁵⁰ faithful and apostate. Cyprian praised all the standing as confessors of the faith: those who had withstood imperial interrogation, torture and exile; those who had voluntarily abandoned their property and fled; even those who had confessed only by allowing the edict’s deadline to pass without complying.⁵¹ To these standing, he contrasted all the fallen, whether they had acquired certificates without sacrificing or had actually sacrificed, either under coercion or spontaneously. He implored them to seek the forgiveness of God and the peace of the church through humble repentance.⁵² The leaders of the schism he once again branded agents of Satan: in offering immediate peace to the fallen, they were actually preventing repentance and thereby blocking the only remaining access to salvation.⁵³ Finally, he warned all the rebels that unlike idolatry, the sin of splitting the unity of the church was unforgivable.⁵⁴ This conflict in Africa also set the context for the first version of Cyprian’s treatise On the Unity of the Catholic Church?⁵⁵

Later in the spring of 251, the bishops of Africa finally met in Carthage to work out a common policy for the reconciliation of the lapsed.⁵⁶ These leaders weighed the pastoral necessity of preventing wholesale defection by those who had failed in persecution and reviewed God’s warnings of severity and promises of leniency in the scriptures.⁵⁷ In the end, they moderated the stance which Cyprian, the Roman presbyters, and others of their own number had taken during the persecution by reinstating the customary distinction between the sacrificers and the certified.⁵⁸ Those who sinned only by acquiring certificates and had been practicing penance might be admitted to communion imm...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• PREFACE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• 1: HISTORY OF CYPRIAN’S CONTROVERSIES
• 2: CHRISTIANS OF CARTHAGE UNDER PERSECUTION
• 3: NECESSITY OF REPENTANCE
• 4: EFFICACY OF THE RECONCILIATION RITUAL
• 5: INDIVISIBILITY OF THE CHURCH
• 6: INITIATION INTO UNITY
• 7: PURITY OF THE CHURCH
• 8: UNITY OF THE EPISCOPATE
• 9: CYPRIAN’S AFRICAN HERITAGE
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY