Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/666

 CYPRIAN

588

CYPRIAN

declared it was right for a bishop to die in his own city. On the return of Galerius to Carthage, Cyprian was brouglit from his gardens by two prinriprK in a chariot, but tlie proconsul was ill, and Cyprian passed the night in the hoase of the first priiiteps in tlic com- pany of his friends. Of the rest we have a vague de- scription by Pontius and a detailed report in the pro- consular Acts. On the morning of the 14th a crowd gathered " at the villa of Sextus ' ', by order of the au- thorities. Cyprian was tried there. He refused to sacrifice, and added that in such a matter there was no room for thought of the consequences to hunself. The proconsul read his condemnation and the multi- tude cried, " Let us be beheaded with him! " He was taken into the grounds, to a hollow surrounded by trees, into which many of the people climbed. Cy- prian took off his cloak, and knelt down and prayed. Then he took off his dalmatic and gave it to his dea- cons, and stood in his linen tunic in silence awaiting the executioner, to whom he ordered twenty-five gold pieces to be given. The brethren cast cloths and handkerchiefs before him to catch his blood. He bandaged his own eyes with the help of a priest and a deacon, both called Julius. So he suffered. For the rest of the day his body was expo.sed to satisfy the curiosity of the pagans. But at night the brethren bore him with candles and torches, with prayer and great triumph, to the cemetery of Macrobius Candi- dianus in the suburb of Mapalia. He was the first Bishop of Carthage to obtain the crown of martyrdom.

Writings. — The correspondence of Cj'prian con- sists of eighty-one letters. Sixty-two of them are his own, three more are in the name of councils. From this large collection we get a vivid picture of his time. The first collection of his writings must have been made just before or just after his death, as it was known to Pontius. It consisted of ten treatises and seven letters on martyrdom. To these were added in Africa a set of letters on the baptismal question, and at Rome, it seems, the correspondence with Corne- lius, except Ep. xlviii. Other letters were successively aggregated to these groups, including letters to Cy- j)rian or cormected with him, his collections of Testi- monies, and many spurious works. To the treatises already mentioned we have to add a well-known ex- position of the Lord's Prayer; a work on the simplicity of dress proper to consecrated virgins (these are both founded on Tertullian); "On the Mortality", a beau- tiful pamphlet, composed on the occasion of the plague which reached Carthage in 252, when Cyprian, with wonderful energy, raised a staff of workers and a great fund of money for the nursing of the sick and the burial of the dead. Another work, "On Almsgiv- ing", its Christian character, necessity, and satisfac- tory value, was perhaps written, as Watson has pointed out, in reply to the calumny that Cyprian's own laWsh gifts were bribes to attach men to his side. Only one of his writings is couched in a pungent strain, the "ad Demetrianmn", in which he replies m a spir- ited manner to the accusation of a heathen that Chris- tianity had brought the plague upon the world. Two short works, "On Patience" and "On Rivalry and Envy", apparently WTitten during the baptismal con- troversy, were much read in ancient times. St. Cy- prian was the first great Latin writer among the Chris- tians, for Tertullian fell into heresy, and his style was harsh and unintelligible. Until the daysof Jerome and Augustine, Cyprian's wTitings had no rivals in the West. Their praise is sung by Prudentius, who joins with Pacian, Jerome, Augustine, and many others in attesting their extraordinary popularity.

Doctrine. — The little that can be extracted from St. Cyprian on the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation is correct, judged by later standards. On bapti.snial regeneration, on the Real Presence, on the Sacrifice of the Mass, his faith is clearly and repeatedly exiinssed, especially in Ep. Ixiv on infant baptism, and in lOp.

Ixiii on the mixed chalice, written against the sacri- legious custom of using water without wine for Mass. On penance he is clear, like all the ancients, that for those who have been separated from the Church by sin there is no return except by an hiunble confession {exoniologesis apud sacerdotes), followed by remissio facia per sacerdotes. The ordinary minister of this sacrament is the sacerdos par excellence, the bishop; but priests can administer it subject to him, and in case of necessity the lapsed might be restored by a deacon. He does not add, as we should at the pres- ent day, that in this case there is no sacrament ; such theological distinctions were not in his line. There was not even a beginning of canon law in the Western Church of the third century. In Cyprian's \-iew each bishop is answerable to God alone for his action, though he ought to take counsel of the clergy and of the laity also in all important matters. The Bishop of Carthage had a great position as honorary chief of all the bishops in the provinces of Proconsular Africa, Numidia, and Mauretania, who were about a hmidred in number; but he had no actual jurisdiction over them. They seem to have met in some numbers at Carthage every spring, but their coneiliar decisions had no real binding force. If a bishop should aposta- tize or become a heretic or fall into scandalous sin, he might be deposed by his comprovincials or by the pope. Cj'jirian probably thought that questions of heresy would always be too obvious to need much dis- cission. It is certain that where internal discipline was concerned he considered that Rome should not interfere, and that uniformity was not desirable — a most unpractical notion. We have always to remem- ber that his experience as a Cliristian was of short duration, that he became a bishop soon after he was converted, and that he had no Christian writings be- sides Holy Scripture to study but those of Tertullian. He evidently knew no Greek, and probably was not acquainted with the translation of Irenaeus. Rome is to him the centre of the Church's unity; it was inac- cessible to heresy, which had been knocking at its doors for a century in vain. It was the See of Peter, who was the type of the bishop, the first of the Apos- tles. Difference of opinion between bishops as to the right occupant of the Sees of Aries or Emerita would not involve breach of communion, but rival bishops at Rome would divide the Church, and to communi- cate with the wTong one would be schism. It is con- troverted whether chastity was obligatory or only strongly m-ged upon priests in his day. The conse- crated virgins were to him the flower of his flock, the jewels of the Church, amid the profligacy of paganism. Spuria. — A short treatise, "Quod Idola dii non sint", is printed in all editions as Cj-prian's. It is made up out of Tertullian and Minucius Felix. Its genuineness is accepted by Benson, Monceaux, and Bardenhewer, as it was anciently by Jerome and Augustine. It has been attributed by Haussleiter to Novatian, and is rejected by Harnack, Watson, and von Soden. "De Spectaculis" and "De bono pudi- citi8e"are, with some probability, ascribed to Nova- tian. They are well-written letters of an absent bishop to his flock. "De Laude mart>Tii" is again attributed by Harnack to Novatian; but this is not generally accepted. "Adversus Juda^os" is perhaps by a Novatianist, and Harnack ascribes it to Nova- tian himself. "Ad Novatianum" is ascribed by Har- nack to Pope Sixtus II. Ehrhard, Benson, Nelke, and Weynian agree with him that it was written in Rome. This is denied by Jiilicher, Bardenhewer, Monceaux. Rombold thinks it is by Cyprian. "De Rebaptismate" is apparently the work attributed by Gennadius to a Roman named TTrsinus, c. 400. He was followed by some earlier critics, Routh, Oudin, and lately by "Zahn. But it was almost certainly written during the baptismal controversy under Stephen. It comes from Rome (so Harnack and