Carthage in the first half of the third century of the Christian era, Herodian tells us, was in population and wealth the equal of Alexandria and second only to Rome. The great city had a wonderful history; it had long disputed the sovereignty of the Mediterranean seaboard with Rome, and after a contest, which more or less went on for a century, was completely defeated, and in the year 146 B. C. was burned and utterly desolated. It was said that in the hour of its ruin it contained 700,000 inhabitants. Under Julius Caesar and Augustus it became once more an important and flourishing city and a mighty emporium of commerce. Its rare beauty gave it an especial distinction among the great homes of wealth and industry of the old world. "Faintly we may picture to ourselves a material something not wholly unlike what Carthage was. Scarcely any city yields so many scenes. The sheets gathering themselves in unique symmetry to the feet of sudden steeps and many tinted marble heights, or opening full on the glistening quays and the breathless harbors, graceful hills about it crowned with shrines and villas, the vast lake where navies of commerce and of pleasure rode close to the streets, severed by a thread from the open sea, mountain crests in snow watching from the distance, through all and over all that keen light and intense blue of Africa." But the city, literally matchless for beauty and wealth, has experienced the strangest vicissitudes. It arose, perhaps, grander than ever during the Empire after its utter destruction in the Punic Wars. It was wrecked and desolated again by the Vandals under Genseric in the year 439; and in the last years of the seventh century "whatever yet remained of Carthage was delivered to the flames by the conquering Muslim Arabs. The very ruins of Carthage have perished, and the place might be unknown if some broken arches of an aqueduct did not guide the footsteps of the inquisitive traveller." Of material Carthage, writes the last scholarly biographer of S. Cyprian, we have less knowledge than of any great city. "Carthage has been learnedly rebuilt in the air, its temples and streets mapped and raised, but all are as visionary as a mirage."
A striking fact is noticeable in connection with this North African Church. It was here, not in Rome and Italy, that Latin Christianity and literature first arose, here that the earliest of the Latin versions of the New Testament Scriptures was made. While the Christian Church at Rome was still Greek, a Church largely made up of foreigners resident in the great capital, in Carthage the Roman and Latin speaking population was in great measure Christian. No tradition has reached us of the date when the religion of Jesus was first introduced into this important province of the Empire. Augustine suggests, when speaking of the names by which the two Sacraments were known in Africa, "Salus" and "Vita," that the names in question must have come through some Apostolic source. Among the listeners to Peter's famous Pentecostal sermon were, we read (Acts ii. 10), "dwellers in the parts of Lybia about Cyrene." The story of Jesus might well have been spread along the African coast by these Jews of Cyrene, who had listened to Peter.
But we have selected Carthage and Alexandria for our especial study because, in the churches of these famous Imperial centers, at the most critical moment in the early story of Christianity, when the religion of Jesus was first brought publicly face to face with Paganism, arose the four greatest earthly makers of Christianity, who appeared in the first two hundred and eighty years of stress and storm. We have dwelt on the Alexandrian masters, Clement and Origen; we have spoken, too, already, of the Carthaginian master, Tertullian, who taught and wrote in the first quarter of the third century. The last in order of time of these four great ones, Cyprian of Carthage, who suffered martyrdom for the Faith in the year 258, was in some respects the most eminent of them all. As a writer, indeed, although his literary works are deservedly famous, and were far-reaching in their influence, he was inferior to the first three, Clement, Origen, and Tertullian; but he represents a type of man somewhat different from any that had as yet appeared among the ranks of the Christian communities.
He was, it is true, a great scholar and thinker, but at the same time he was, what such men usually are not, a born leader, of a wondrously winning personality which aroused the warmest and most affectionate devotion among his contemporaries; a devotion which survived him, as we see in the references to him and his work again and again, in the writings of Augustine in the West, and of Gregory Nazianzen in the East. To this was added the halo of a white, pure life; men in different lands and of different race believed in his unswerving integrity of purpose, even when they differed from his views.
Tertullian and his life-work were especially dwelt upon in Chapter XII., because his influence and teaching were inseparably bound up with the important school of thought which grew up at Rome under Hippolytus in the Pontificates of Zephyring and Callistus.
In some respects he is justly considered as the founder of Latin Christianity. Deeply impressed by his training and earlier associations with the majesty of the Roman strength and Roman respect of law, he believed that the strength of the Church was based upon its unity, and that this unity depended upon its acknowledgment of the absolute supremacy of the bishop—who alone could enforce discipline and order, in matters of doctrine as well as in life.
Until the time of Cyprian, "the absolute supremacy of the bishop had been little more than a lofty title, or, at least, a vague, ill-defined assumption." Through his teaching and vast influence it became "a substantial and world-wide fact." He added little or nothing to the claims of the Episcopate put forward by men like Ignatius or Irenaeus—for with Ignatius at the beginning of the second century the bishop was "the center of Christian unity," with Irenaeus, far on in the same century, he was "the depository of Apostolic tradition." Cyprian, in his teaching, closely followed these great masters; but he raised the Episcopate to a higher level, and put new force into old titles of respect. With Cyprian, the bishop was "the absolute vicegerent of Christ in things spiritual." He was popularly elected, it is true, by the commons of Christ's Church, but was no bishop until he had received consecration through bishops by transmission from times when the guidance of the Apostles was present in the Church.
From the position of lofty independence to which Cyprian raised the Episcopate it has never since been deposed. His theory underlies Catholic Christendom today. Wherever it has been departed from. Church order has gravely suffered. Rome, resting largely upon traditional statements of Cyprian, which the great theologian never really advanced, has subsequently overridden the freedom of the Episcopate by a usurpation unquestioned in a large portion of Western Christendom, while a reaction against Rome in some of the countries of North-Western Europe has deliberately set aside bishops altogether and the episcopal theory of Church government. From this fatal error has sprung much of the disorder in doctrines, teaching, and ecclesiastical organization which so many serious members of the non-episcopal communities honestly deplore.
We shall dwell with some detail upon the Church of Carthage and upon its great chief, for much light will be thrown thereby upon the inner life of the Church in his day. Some serious, special difficulties presented themselves in the heart of the charmed circle of the Christian communities. These had to be grappled with, and without delay, for they threatened to disturb the Church's government and gravely to interfere with its discipline and order.
Nothing is known of Cyprian's early life. A native most probably of Carthage, we first hear of him about the year 246, in the reign of the Emperor Philip, at which date he was the foremost advocate in the law courts of Carthage, and had just joined the Christian community. He was possessed of great wealth. His villa was magnificent, and his gardens famed for their beauty. In the Christian Church he became a deacon, then a presbyter, and with strange rapidity we find him, on the death of the Bishop of Carthage, Donatus, called by the unanimous voice of the community of believers to the vacant chief post in the Church. Only five presbyters are related to have been opposed to the popular election, and these five for a long period remained in bitter antagonism. Cyprian at first declined the high office thus thrust upon him, but the mass of the Christian population of the great city, no inconsiderable portion of the citizens, would hear of no refusal. Cyprian then consented to accept the important and arduous office. This was in the year 248. His great reputation, his wide scholarship, his known eloquence and high character, all designated the new convert as the most fitting successor to Donatus.
When Cyprian became chief of the Christian society of the third city of the Roman Empire, only a few months remained to the communities of the long period of stillness, of immunity from all persecution, which, with only a brief interruption, had lasted some thirty-eight years.
The unlooked-for death of the Emperor Philip in a military revolt removed from the scene one who, if not a Christian, was certainly the friend of the Christians. A very different spirit was at once shown by his successor, the choice of the powerful army of Maesia, which had revolted against Philip. The new Emperor Decius was no ordinary man. In the "Augustan History" he occupies a very honorable place among the small number of "good Emperors" who reigned between Augustus and Diocletian; and in later times is the subject of a special panegyric in the brilliant pages of the historian of the Decline and Fall. To Decius the presence of the Christians in Rome and in all the provinces, their numbers and increasing influence, seemed one of the principal causes of the deterioration of the Empire; and early in his reign he promulgated a persecuting edict, the severest that had yet been issued by the Roman Government. The text of the edict has not been preserved, but its purport is well known. Its intention was evidently their extermination throughout the Empire. To slay them was of course, considering their vast numbers, not practicable; but every possible means was to be adopted to induce the Christians to return to the Official Religion of the Empire. Gentle means of persuasion were to be used at first, then severe measures were to be resorted to. The profession of the hated religion was to be rendered impossible. The edict was far-reaching; its provision affected all ranks—all ages. It was to run in Rome and the provinces alike. There was no delay in putting the stern decree into execution. Early in the year 250 the Christian communities were startled at the news of the martyrdom of Fabian, Bishop of Rome. Of the other chiefs of the proscribed sect, the Bishops of Antioch and Jerusalem died soon in prison, Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, was only saved by flight, Origen, the greatest living Christian teacher, was subjected to cruel torture.
We have chosen to speak more particularly of Carthage, where Cyprian had just been elected bishop, as the representative city at this juncture. When the order for persecution arrived in the great North African capital the terror was widespread. It affected all classes in the Christian population. Anyone might be summoned and required at once to sacrifice, and apparently many were brought to submission.
It is not improbable, considering the numbers who were called upon in Carthage to declare "for Paganism," that a general solemn "supplication" was arranged, to which all citizens were summoned, and that thus it would be seen at once who would submit and who would resist. At all events the immediate result was the imprisonment of a considerable number of Christians, who were cruelly dealt with—confiscation of their property, rigorous imprisonment and torture, and in some cases even death, quickly following upon the arrest.
Those who were steadfast, who endured any loss or suffering sooner than apostatize, require no special mention; they only followed in the steps of the brave confessors who in the successive persecutions for the past 186 years had, by their steadfast endurance, been at once the strength and the glory of Christianity. But in this Decian persecution in the sad year 250 there were a great number of Christians whose courage failed them, and who, to escape the loss of their goods, to free themselves from the penalties attached to the profession of their faith, consented to sacrifice, to burn incense, or, strange to say, to purchase certificates (libelli) which officially declared that they had sacrificed or burnt incense before the altar of the "Divine Emperor" or some other deity of Rome.
It was a novel experience in the story of the Church, this quick surrender on the part of Christians, this ready denial of their faith, this strange submission to the gods of Rome; an experience as sad and grievous as it was unique.
We have not to search long before we find the causes of this falling away of so many in the first hour of stern trial. For some thirty-eight years, save for the brief interlude of fitful persecution in the reign of Maximinus, all persecution for the Name's sake had been unknown. For the first time since the dread hour when the officers of Nero laid violent hands on the Christians of Rome, the followers of Jesus had for a lengthened period enjoyed quiet and stillness, had been allowed to worship as they chose, had been permitted openly to call themselves by the name of Him they loved. When the Decian storm broke over them only very old men could remember the days of severe trial in the early years of the century; indeed, to the contemporaries of Cyprian persecution was rather a tradition than an experience. During the long stillness in many quarters laxity of living had replaced the old gravity and austerity of the Christian life lived so long amid the stress and storm of daily peril and awful risk. Church discipline had become in many centers sadly relaxed.
The bishops in many instances, while enjoying the privileges of their rank in the community, had become engrossed in the pleasures and business of the life in the midst of which they lived. Some had devoted themselves to agriculture, some to commerce, some to banking and even to usury. Not unknown in the Church circles of the middle of the third century were even immoral chief pastors. Some of the North African bishops were positively notorious for their share in the slave trade of the Sahara! Ignorance, too, of the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic faith was not unknown among the Church leaders. "Cold and dark are the shades which are flung a thwart the bright tracts and around the glowing lights of the scenes of this early Church life. If it were possible for such men to be bishops we can understand how among their proselytes they tolerated the makers of idols and the compounders of incense, or among their laity astrologers and theatrical trainers."
These gloomy pictures of the Church of this period are drawn mainly from the epistles of Cyprian and the treatises of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who wrote about a century and a half later.
It is easy to understand how, in a Church which contained such unworthy members, some of them, even bearers of high office in the congregation, would, at the first blast of a vigorous persecution, fall away, and for the sake of preserving life and all that made life pleasant, would deny the Name for which their fathers had so gladly died.
Cyprian, we read, was appalled at the first rush of faithless members of his flock to the Forum of Carthage or the temples of the gods to sacrifice and to burn incense at the heathen altars, and so, at what seemed an easy concession, purchase safety and immunity. What happened at Carthage was repeated at Rome and Alexandria, and in other great centers of the Empire. It was even asserted, though no doubt with exaggeration, that the majority of the Christians fell away at this awful moment of trial.
The deserters from the cause were divided into two classes. Those who sacrificed and burnt incense at the altars of the gods "Sacrificati" and "Thurificati," and those who, for a sum of money, large or small, purchased from the Imperial magistrates certificates (libelli), that they had satisfied the officials of the State of their "orthodox State Paganism." These last were generally known as Libellatics, Lihellatici, From the accounts we possess of the subsequent trouble in the Christian Church in dealing with these "lapsed Christians" who wished to be received again into communion with the Church, a great number of these libelli, or certificates of Paganism, must have been issued.
The reaction, however, soon came, and was remarkable. Numbers of those who in the first moment of the terror had fallen away and had consented to sacrifice, or to purchase safety by means of a libellus from the State authorities, begged to be admitted once more to communion with the Church they had for a moment denied. It was a grave difficulty how these repentant ones were to be treated. Some of them voluntarily reappeared before the Imperial tribunal, defied the edict, and gladly received the punishment of confiscation, exile, or even death; others in silence and in secret renounced their weakness, and tried by a life of penitence to atone for their sin. Many of these availed themselves of a strange privilege, claimed by those who had played a braver part in the persecution, who for the Name's sake had suffered the spoiling of their goods, had endured imprisonment and torture, and now lay in prison waiting for death. This was the right of at once restoring "lapsed" persons to all the privileges of Church communion. It is not known how long this claim to a singular power or privilege had existed; probably it dated far back, and had its origin in the extraordinary honor ever paid to confessors of the Faith. Any request made by such brave and constant ones would no doubt always be reverently listened to. But in the Decian persecution, when so many fell away, the claim was obviously liable to gross abuse.
This usage prevailed in other centers in Egypt and in Asia, and, to a certain extent, in Home; but it was in Carthage that it was most apparent. There the confessors in prison were literally besieged by crowds of the "Lapsi" begging for "Letters of Peace" and reconciliation. There was only one in that harassed and half-ruined community of Carthage whose voice would be listened to in this hour of confusion and dismay, and he was in exile. The thoughts of all serious, anxious Christians in the North African province turned to Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, who, when the edict of Decius was put out, had withdrawn himself for a season from the city, and from a temporary retirement watched the storm, and helped to guide his harassed Church in its moment of extreme difficulty and danger.
The great bishop from his retirement was dismayed at this claim on the part of the imprisoned confessors—he viewed it as calculated to destroy all discipline in the Church and as capable of being used most mischievously, and he wrote that as soon as possible a Council of Bishops should be assembled at Carthage and at Rome, who would examine the whole question of the unhappy "Lapsi," and devise a wise and gracious method by which those who earnestly desired it might be restored to communion.
The opportunity soon came. The life and reign of Decius came to an end in a battle during the campaign which the Emperor had undertaken against the Goths, who were sorely pressing the Empire on its eastern frontier, and for some months confusion prevailed at Rome.
During the months of confusion which followed the death of Decius on the field of battle the persecuting edict of that Emperor, although not cancelled, was no longer pressed; and gradually once again a partial "stillness" was enjoyed by the harassed Church. Cyprian returned to Carthage, and without delay summoned the bishops of his important province to what is known as Cyprian's First Council of Carthage. The date was A. D. 251.
Cyprian's retirement in this fiery persecution of Decius has been variously commented upon. He was proscribed by name, and his death would have deprived the Christians of North Africa of the one leader they possessed, on whose commanding genius they relied for advice and guidance. Cyprian was well aware of this, and for the Church's sake withdrew from the scene of action, conscious that his life, not his death, would be of most service in "the terror." His absolute fearlessness of death, however, was shown some six years later, when he felt that things were more settled and in better order, and that the great example of the Bishop of Carthage dying for the Name would be the best thing for the Church. So in A. D. 257-8, about six years after the events of which we are now speaking, when the persecution of the Emperor Valerian lay heavy on Carthage, resisting all entreaties to fly, Cyprian quietly remained to die. His martyrdom will be presently related.
The laity who had obtained certificates, the class of Libellatici generally, were treated with much consideration, and were generally allowed to return to communion after a period of penance. An inquiry into each case of apostasy was, however, directed, which determined the period of penance. Those who had actually sacrificed were not to be received until the hour of death, and then only if they had continued penitent. It seems, though this is not quite clear, that in many cases this last severity was subsequently mitigated or set aside, and none were eventually excluded from returning to communion with the Church. The Roman Church accepted the wise, and on the whole merciful ruling of Cyprian and his Council, which indeed was generally followed in all the other great Churches.
This Council of Carthage, under the influence of Cyprian, ignored the interference of the confessors in the matter of the reconciliation of the "Lapsi." Such an irregular interference was considered, and rightly, a serious danger to any well-ordered system of organization. (The principle of "merits" of certain saintly persons supplementing the insufficiency of others, curiously reappears, in another form, in the later history of the Church in the mediaeval doctrine of "indulgences.")
No grateful praise is out of place for Cyprian's merciful work in this difficult question of the restoration of the erring. It passed into the code which has since regulated the dealings of the Catholic Church with sinners. No sin, however great, is beyond the hope of pardon.
The great Bishop of Carthage at this time put out several important treatises on the subject. Some of his wise and generous conclusions were several times repeated or quoted by Augustine, writing some century and a half later. With Cyprian it was clear that "no human right exists to eradicate tares, or to break the poorest earthen vessels in pieces. Perfect freedom to become good corn, or (using another image) for the earthen vessel to make a golden urn of itself, belongs to every soul." It was a gracious and authoritative exposition of the Lord's parable of the tares, and one which the Catholic Church has written for ever in its Rule of Life. The hope of restoration and reconciliation through the Lamb's precious blood is the priceless inheritance of every penitent sinner.
The lull in the persecution which followed the death of the Emperor Decius was but of short duration. The circumstances under which it recommenced under his successor, the Emperor Callus, were singular.
The plague was no unknown scourge in the early centuries of the Christian era. In the years 66, 67, 80, this fearful malady had appeared and re-appeared in the Empire. From the end of the second century it was ever present in one or other of the provinces. In the middle of the third century the pest had attained vast proportions, and for some twenty years we hear of its ravages in all parts of the Empire. It seems to have been a malignant class of typhoid fever, accompanied by many distressing and dangerous complications, very infectious and often terribly fatal to its countless victims, and tending to return more than once to centers which it had already desolated. In A. D. 261, for instance, it made its appearance for the second time in Alexandria, and in four years, we read, it had reduced the population of that great city by about one-half In A. D. 262 it is computed that while it was at its worst in Rome about 5,000 persons died daily in the capital city. In the year 252 it made its appearance at Carthage, where its ravages were terrible. The effect of this frightful scourge upon the Pagan citizens of the Empire seems to have been grievous. The worst passions of men were stirred up. The sick were uncared for; selfish greed, unbridled lust and disorder, reigned unchecked; physical terror became the dominant feeling in life. A city when attacked by the fearful malady became a vast charnel house; everywhere men only seemed to care for their own safety, while crime and all manner of wrong-doing increased with incredible rapidity. The ordinary government was paralyzed in the presence of the universal terror.
In striking contrast to the selfishness and shameful excesses of the Pagan population was the behavior of the Christian communities in these dread seasons. A wonderful picture, for instance, is preserved to us of the courage and devotion of the believers of Alexandria when the plague visited the great Egyptian center some nine years later than the visitation of Carthage. There, under the influence and example of the bishop, the celebrated Dionysius, the Christians showed a noble pattern of self-sacrifice. In their tender care for their stricken brother or sister they disregarded all heed of self by even recklessly, as it seems, exposing themselves in their loving ministration to the deadly infection. The words of the great Bishop Dionysius, quoted by Eusebius, are of singular interest: "Indeed, the most of our brethren by their exceeding great love and brotherly affection, not sparing themselves, and adhering to one another, were constantly watching the sick, ministering to their wants without fear and without cessation, and healing them in Christ, have departed most sweetly with them." And further on he adds: "The best of our brethren indeed have departed life in this way, some indeed presbyters, some deacons, and of the people those that were exceedingly commended. So that this very form of death, with the piety and ardent faith which accompanied it, appeared to be but little inferior to martyrdom itself They took up the bodies of the saints with their hands, and on their bosoms cleaned their eyes and closed their mouths, carried them on their shoulders and composed their limbs, embraced them, clung to them, and prepared them carefully (for the grave) with washing and garments, and ere long they themselves shared in receiving the same offices, those that survived always following those before them."
But self-sacrificing and devoted as were the ministrations of the members of the Christian communities of Alexandria and other great plague-stricken centers of population to their brethren in the Faith, the teaching and example of Cyprian when the terrible pestilence was raging at Carthage struck a new note of pity. Pontius, his deacon and biographer, tells us how Cyprian urged upon his flock that to help their own people was, after all, but an act of slender merit; the perfect Christian must pray for all alike, must minister to all alike in their great need. There must be no distinction of person, no inquiry as to creed; the Pagan and the persecutor must be succored as well as the fellow-Christian. The believer must live up to his name and his glorious ancestry he must remember that God's sun shines for all, and His rain falls on the fields of the just and the unjust alike. The servant of God, then, must surely follow his Lord's example.
Such teaching had never been heard since the living voice of Jesus had ceased to speak to men. And the words of Cyprian of Carthage have never been forgotten. His teaching here. Christlike as it was generous, has been followed by every Christian nation on the earth, and the countless hospitals of the world, mainly the outcome of the devotion and love of the followers of Christ, minister to all sufferers, simply regardless of race or creed.
Yet for their devotion and self-sacrifice the Christians of Carthage received but a sorry guerdon. The Emperor Gallus, dismayed at the progress of the plague, thought to avert the evident anger of the gods of Rome by means of solemn public sacrifices throughout the Empire. The non-attendance of Christians at these Pagan celebrations excited the anger of the multitude, who once more fancied that the wrath of the immortals was evoked by the teaching and practices of the mighty sect growing up in their midst who taught men to shun their altars. Thus it came to pass that the general persecution, which had died away when Decius perished, flamed up anew, and the Decian edict, which had never been revoked, was again set in force; while in Carthage, where a singularly famous Christian teacher swayed a great community by the magic of his words and the splendid devotion of his acts, the menacing cry was heard, "To the lions with Cyprian!"
The persecution of Gallus, though sharp and general, was but of short duration; for once more a military revolt put an end to the Emperor's reign and life. And the legions, who made and unmade at their fickle pleasure the lords of the Roman world, saluted as Emperor Valerian the Censor, who had first come into public notice in the reign of Decius. The new Sovereign was at first kindly disposed to his Christian subjects. It is noteworthy that, in distinction from the Decian persecution, no "Lapsi" seemed to have dishonored the Name and to have degraded the profession of Christians in the stormy period which closed the reign of Gallus. The historian of this anxious period in the Church's early history would be unjust if he did not ascribe to the great Bishop of Carthage a large share in the re-awakening of the Church to its imperative duty of bravely and patiently submitting to any suffering rather than deny the Name.
A considerable period of quiet was enjoyed by the believers in Jesus after the accession of the Censor Valerian to the throne, A. D. 253. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, writes thus strongly of the favorable disposition of this Emperor towards Christianity in the earlier years of his reign: "Kind and friendly he was towards the pious (Christians). For there was never any of the Emperors before him so favorably and benevolently disposed towards them; not even those who were openly said to be Christians received them with such extreme courtesy and friendship as did he at the commencement of his reign. All his house was filled with pious persons; it was indeed a congregation of the Lord. But the Master and Chief Ruler of the Egyptian Magi, Macrianus (who became Valerian's chief adviser), persuaded him to abandon this course, exhorting him to persecute and to slay these pure and holy men."
Before the change in Valerian's policy some two or three years of quietness remained for Cyprian to impress upon the men of his time his theory of Christian unity, his grand conception of the work and office of the Catholic Church. About a century and a quarter after the martyrdom of Cyprian, one of the greatest orators and theologians of the Catholic Church, Gregory of Nazianzen, bishop of the Metropolitan See of Constantinople, in one of his famous orations, delivered in the capital of the Eastern Empire, in glowing words thus describes the commanding influence which Cyprian had acquired in the Church at large, the mighty love and devotion he had gained over men's hearts far and near: "Not over the Church of Carthage alone does he preside, nor yet over the Church of Africa, famous until now from him and through him, but over all the Western Church, nay and almost the Eastern Church itself, and over the bounds of South and North. Thus Cyprian becomes our own. The very remembrance of the man is a sanctification." This was the estimate of one of the chiefest of Eastern theologians; while, in the West, only a very few years later, the great Augustine, one of his passionate admirers and followers, speaks of him in these terms: "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 consolation the Lord governed His Church through him."
It is singular that the name of this most eminent Christian leader, who was deservedly held in highest honor in the Churches of his own day, whose posthumous fame is even greater, whose work and influence have been generally so enduring, is connected with the advocacy of one grave error, an error which has been universally condemned in the Church of the West.
In the three Councils of Carthage held under the presidency of Cyprian in the years of quietness, 255 and 256, a prominent question was brought before the assembled bishops of the Province, who numbered in one of their Councils as many as eighty- seven—"Was it right to re-baptize heretics?" The North African Church, under the direction of their great bishop, formally answered the question in the affirmative, denying the validity of baptism not only by heretics but also by schismatics (under schismatics Cyprian included separatist sects like that of the Novatians). On this question, which so seriously agitated the Catholic Church and for a while divided it into two opposing camps, hangs a most important principle, which, owing to the discussions which arose, largely as the result of Cyprian's action, has been happily settled once for all, certainly as far as regards the whole Western Church. The principle is so weighty a one that it will be worth our while very briefly to discuss it.
To insist upon re-baptism, even though the simple divine ritual t had been complied with, would imply that the grace of the sacrament was given not by virtue of the sacrament, but by the merit of him who ministers it. Generally speaking, the early Church determined against any repetition of baptism. This rule was followed by the majority of the early heretics; re-baptism appears to have been practised only among the followers of Marcion. But Cyprian in his contention was supported by some weighty precedents and important authorities. In the middle of the third century, the point at issue had not been formally decided, nor had any substantial agreement on the subject been come to. But such was the generous breadth of the man, that although he was very definite in his teaching here, he never dreamed of severing the connection or of interrupting the communion which existed between his own North African Church and the Churches which he considered to be in error in this matter.
Cyprian apparently rested on the pronouncement of an important Council of some seventy African and Numidian bishops under one of his predecessors, Agrippinus, circa A. D. 213, which had settled the use of the North African Church in this particular. Tertullian, ever a very weighty authority with Crian, as might have been expected from the well-known bias of his mind, had some years before declared the re-baptism of heretics to be necessary. Further afield, Cyprian was supported by Firmilian, Bishop of Caesarea, the chief see of Cappadocia. Firmilian's was an important opinion. He was not only the chief bishop of a large and important province, but in his day (the middle of the third century) ranked high among the chiefs of Christendom, his name standing first in Eusebius' roll of the great contemporary Church rulers.
Firmilian, in his letter on this subject, alludes to the Councils of Iconium and Synnada as holding the Cyprianic theory of re-baptism. There were fifty bishops attending the latter of these gatherings. Synnada was an important Phrygian center. In the Greek see of Alexandria, Dionysius, another bishop of commanding influence in that age, was evidently uncertain on the question, and his ruling on different occasions on this point does not appear to have been consistent. The Alexandrian was a broad and tolerant prelate, and apparently would have left each community to continue to observe its own traditional usage.
But on the other hand, the Church of Rome, in the person of its Bishop, Stephen, knew its mind. Stephen emphatically condemned the practice of ever re-baptizing, supposing the divine ritual had been originally adhered to; he asserted that his Church possessed here the apostolic authority of a distinct tradition; and, according to Firmilian, he even went so far as to accuse Cyprian, in his teaching of the necessity of a re-baptism in the cases of heretics and schismatics, of being a false apostle and a treacherous worker.
The conclusion of this sharp and acrimonious dispute on a question which, though it has long ceased to divide Christian theologians, involved a principle of the highest importance, has been admirably summed up by one who has made Cyprian and his work a life-study, and who, while passionately admiring the great bishop, has not allowed this admiration for one instant to cloud his judgment of Cyprian's error. "How great," he suggests, "was the triumph of Stephen of Rome!" The contention of Cyprian "was backed," he reminds us, "by an army of prelates, whom he rather restrained than stimulated, moving as one man to his direction, yet with an independence which threw each upon himself for his argument. No Council assembled to support him (Stephen of Rome); Alexandria (Dionysius) remonstrated, Cappadocia (Firmilian) denounced. His (Stephen's) good cause was marred by un-charity, 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." The grace of Baptism, according to Stephen of Rome, was of Christ, not of the human Baptizer, or as Augustine, a century and a half after Stephen accurately puts it, "Ministers do not confer the grace of the Sacraments, but the Holy Spirit confers it through their ministry."
The great principle at stake defended by Stephen and the Church of Rome, and so hotly discussed in the middle of the third century, was re-affirmed in the closing century of the mediaeval period by the Council of Constance (A. D. 1414-1418), when it condemned the error of Wickliffe, who asserted that no bishop or priest in mortal sin could either baptize or consecrate (Session VIII.). The Twenty-sixth Article of the Church of England, based on the Eighth Article of the Confession of Augsburg, reiterates the unanimous opinion of the Western Church when it affirms that "the grace of God's gifts is not diminished from such as by faith and rightly do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them, which be effectual because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men."
As regards Cyprian and his dissension with Stephen of Rome, it was quickly ended, for only a few months after Cyprian's third Council held at Carthage, which again reaffirmed his views on the necessity of a new baptism in the case of heretics and schismatics, the persecution of A. D. 257 burst over the Church in many lands. Stephen, his adversary, appears to have been among the first victims of the persecution at Rome. Sixtus, Stephen's successor, in the same sad year also won the martyr's crown, the circumstances of his death being singularly touching. But the feud between Rome and Carthage had already evidently lost its bitterness, for Pontius, Cyprian's faithful deacon and biographer, styles Sixtus "a good and pacific priest."
It is a strong testimony to the greatness of Cyprian and the enduring character of his work that Rome, not always forgiving, has thrown a veil over his contest with Bishop Stephen, and in the golden book of Saints has enrolled the great Carthaginian Master, and even commemorates his memory in the Canon of the Mass.
The great change which passed over Valerian's policy towards the Christians after the earlier years of his reign is remarkable. In spite of the marked favor he had shown them at the beginning of his reign, suddenly, in the years 257 and 258, cruel persecuting edicts were put forth. These were no doubt suggested by the circumstances of the Empire. What has been graphically termed "The Uprising of the Nations" was being painfully felt. The mighty confederacy of Franks was pouring across Gaul, and even invading Spain. The Allemanni were breaking through the lines of defense on the Rhine and Danube, and were even threatening Italy. The Goths were a terror as far south as Greece; while in the East, Mesopotamia and Syria were swept across by the Persian conquerors, who were soon to defeat and to capture the Roman Emperor himself.
In this period of distress and general national terror the chief adviser and minister of Valerian was that Macrianus whom we have already seen noticed by Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, as chief of the Egyptian Magi, a distinguished soldier and statesman, possessed of vast wealth, who filled the post of Chancellor of the Imperial Exchequer. To his advice is generally attributed Valerian's persecution of the Christians.
Like earlier statesmen, he saw in their attitude towards the Pagan religion an element of disruption, at a time when the solidarity of the Empire was at stake. Hence the first persecuting edict of A. D. 257. Of this edict we do not possess the exact text, but it seemingly had two divisions. The first part simply required that the Christians should sacrifice to the gods of Rome, the second forbade them assembling together or visiting their cemeteries. These hallowed places were sequestered. Refusal to sacrifice was punished with simple exile, but any attempt to assemble for worship or to visit the proscribed cemeteries was to be punished with death. The bishops and clergy were especially marked out for observation. The edict was put into force generally, and with grave to us, who have not Cyprian's merit, to shun Cyprian's opposition to this doctrine.
Cyprian, naturally, from his widespread reputation as a Christian leader, was at once arrested. He made no effort to escape. The proces-verhal of his first trial has been preserved. It is a piece of the highest value, and is reckoned by scholars and critics as of undoubted authenticity. We reproduce it, as it doubtless faithfully represents more or less exactly what took place in other important Christian centers in the case of men of rank who were accused of being Christians.
The trial was held in the Audience Hall of the Pro-consul of Africa, Aspasius Paternus. The Roman magistrate began by informing Cyprian that the most sacred Emperors Valerian and Gallienus (the latter had been associated by his father Valerian in the Imperial dignity) had sent him a mandate in which they directed that persons not following the Roman religion should at once conform to the State ceremonials. In consequence of the mandate he should make inquiries as to how the arrested prisoner styled himself.
Cyprian, in his answer, replied: "I am a Christian and a bishop. I know no other gods but the One true God Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. He is the God whom we Christians wholly serve. Him we pray to, night and day, for ourselves and for the safety of the Emperors."
The Pro-consul: "In this purpose, then, you persevere?"
Cyprian: "A good purpose, formed on the knowledge of God, cannot possibly be altered."
The Pro-consul (sarcastically): "Will it then be possible for you, in compliance with the commands of Valerian and Gallienus, to go at once into exile to the city of Curubis?"
Cyprian: "I depart."
The Pro-consul Paternus further requested Cyprian to give information respecting the Christian presbyters of Carthage. This the bishop refused to do, adding, however, that the presbyters would be found in their several cities.
Paternus rejoined that he would have them found, and then repeated the terms of the Emperor's edict directing that no assemblies of the Christians were to be held, and that they were not to enter into their cemeteries: any who violated the last injunction would be put to death.
Curubis, the city to which Cyprian was banished, was a small, remote town on the sea-board about fifty miles from Carthage, situate in a lonely district. The apparent levity with which Cyprian was treated seems to suggest some doubt in the Pro-consul's mind as to the meaning of the new-edict. The death, however, of this important functionary changed the state of affairs, and we shortly hear of the condemnation of nine Numidian bishops, many presbyters, and lay members of both sexes, to the mines, where great sufferings were endured by these true-hearted confessors. No doubt this severity resulted on the disregard shown of the edict forbidding assemblies and prohibiting all visits to the cemeteries; regulations which would have been deeply felt in the Christian communities.
In the following year, 258, another and far severer edict was put out in the name of Valerian and his son. It was felt by the Imperial Government that if any real effect was to be produced harsher measures were necessary.
The new edict of A. D. 258 was the severest and most far-reaching law that had yet been promulgated against Christianity. Three important classes were specially aimed at—(1) The Christian clergy, bishops, priests, deacons, were no longer to be punished with mere exile, but when identified were at once to be put to death; (2) a new law was promulgated which struck exclusively at the higher classes of Romans, so deeply had Christianity permeated the upper stratum of society in the Empire. Senators, nobles, and knights who were known to be Christians, were to be mulched of all their possessions and deprived of their rank. Thus degraded they were to be summoned before the tribunals, and unless they then and there abjured their faith they were to die; noble women, too, were liable to the confiscation of their goods and to exile and death. (3) The numerous Christian members of "Caesar's Household," including a vast number of public officials, were to be reduced to the condition of slaves. That such a far-reaching and terrible edict was deemed necessary by the Pagan Government of Rome in A. D. 258 bears a testimony which none can dispute to the enormous progress which the religion of Jesus had made in the upper classes of society in the Empire in the two hundred years which had elapsed between the reigns of Nero and Valerian.
No special mention was made of the mass of the people generally. It was evidently supposed that such a tremendous blow aimed at the Christian leaders, at the higher classes of society, at the official order of the "Household of Caesar," would be sufficient to stamp out the obnoxious religion.
The edict of the preceding year, which forbade Christians meeting, and deprived the followers of Jesus of their cemeteries, still remained in force, and was of course often acted upon. Although we have evidence that terrible sufferings were endured by the communities of the Brethren in Rome and in Italy, in Egypt and in North Africa, in Gaul and Spain, in Syria and Asia Minor, it is not probable that the sweeping provisions of the edict of A. D. 258 were ever thoroughly put in force, although what was done fell with cruel harshness on uncounted individuals in those various centers. Indeed there was little time to arrange the elaborate machinery necessary for the complete carrying out of a law which would affect so vast a number of notable and even powerful personages; for in less than two years a fresh edict, promulgated in A. D. 260 by Gallienus, Valerian's son, put a sudden end to the persecution.
But in Carthage, which we have selected as our example of an important typical Christian community of the middle of the third century, at the head of which was placed one of the greatest of the earthly members of the Church of Christ, the second of Valerian's edicts was at least in part put into force, and a persecution, sanguinary while it lasted, harassed the believers and gave to Cyprian the crown of martyrdom.
As regards the great bishop, we have a perfectly reliable account of his last days contained in one of his letters, in the recital of his faithful deacon, Pontius, and in the official proces-verbal of his interrogation by the Pro-consul. The whole story comes down to us without exaggeration, with no improbable admixture of the marvelous.
We have seen how, in the early autumn of A. D. 257, after the first Imperial edict, he was banished to the little sea-coast town of Curubis, some fifty miles from Carthage. Beyond the fact of his exile from his city, he appears to have been under no restraint, and we know he communicated freely with the suffering confessors, who in the course of that year were sent to the mines. But, although Cyprian personally was treated with consideration, he was persuaded that the end for him was near at hand. In the August of the following year, 258, the new edict of Valerian against the Christians was sent out; and perhaps the same messengers who brought him the news told him of the martyrdom of Sixtus and his four deacons, the first fruits of the persecution at Rome. The Pro-consul, Galerius Maximus, who had succeeded Paternus in his high office, at once summoned Cyprian from Curubis to Carthage. There the bishop was permitted to lodge in his own beautiful villa surrounded by gardens, which he had sold for the benefit of his flock, but which had been re-purchased for him by his devoted friends.
The Pro-consul was suffering from sickness, and sent for Cyprian to Utica. But the bishop was determined to die in his own episcopal city, and anticipated the summons, which he was well aware meant death, by withdrawing himself into a temporary place of concealment until the Pro-consul should return to Carthage. In these last days of a great life must be dated his beautiful farewell letter, addressed to his presbyters, deacons, and people. In it he signified his purpose of returning to his Carthage home as soon as he heard that the Proconsul had arrived in the capital city; for he said that it was most fitting that a bishop should play the part of a confessor in his own city. The words that were spoken by a bishop at that supreme moment should be heard by his own people who would repeat them again and again. He had even asked God that the scene of his martyrdom, to which he looked forward, might be Carthage. Cyprian evidently hoped, perhaps expected, that he would be specially helped in his utterances in that solemn long-looked-for hour. In view of the new and awful terror which he foresaw coming upon the communities of believers, the Chief Pastor of Carthage felt there was no occasion for burning words of encouragement to martyrdom; he rather inculcated sobriety and calm; no one of his people was to give himself up voluntarily, no one was to utter fierce words of defiance; only after arrest was the accused Christian to speak, and then a higher Power would tell the faithful confessor how to phrase a noble confession. There was no fear in Cyprian's mind that any "Lapsi," shrinking from a brave confession, would shame the Church of Carthage, as had once been the case in that sad hour of the Decian persecution.
Everything turned out as he had foreseen and provided for; the Pro-consul speedily returned to Carthage, and the confessor bishop at once appeared in his own villa. There, without delay, he was arrested. There was no unmannerly rough treatment of the Christian leader on the part of the Roman officials; his high rank, his stainless reputation, his vast influence and popularity in Carthage and the province, were recognized. But the Roman Government had decided to make him an example, and by striking at so eminent a personage, to terrorize his devoted flock. The second day following the arrest saw the end. The final interrogatory took place in an open court with a colonnade running round it in the Praetorium. It was a striking scene in which the majesty of Rome was fitly represented—the Pro-consul of Africa being surrounded with his chief officials; immediately behind the chair of office were the lictors with their rods and axes; before the great magistrate stood a tripod with burning coals, and a box of incense. The prisoner was simply charged with sacrilege. The proces-verhal was very brief We will translate the Acta Pro-consularia.
The Pro-consul Galerius: "You are Thascius Cyprianus?"
Cyprian: "I am."
The Pro-consul: "You have permitted yourself to be Pope (or bishop) to persons reckoned sacrilegious?"
Cyprian: "I have."
The Pro-consul: "The most sacred Emperor has directed that you should sacrifice."
Cyprian: "I will not sacrifice."
The Pro-consul: "Think for a moment."
Cyprian: "Do the duty enforced upon you; in so righteous a question there is no room for reflection."
Then after a brief consultation with his Council, the Pro-consul pronounced judgment. The words of Galerius were few and measured, and admirably expressed the policy and views of the Pagan Government. "Your life, Cyprian, has long been a life of sacrilege; you have gathered around you many accomplices in your criminal designs; you have set yourself up as an enemy to the gods of Rome and to their sacred rites; nor have the pious and deeply revered Emperors Valerian and Gallienus been able to bring you back to their religion. Therefore as the upholder of a great crime, as the standard-bearer of the sect, I must now make an example of you in the presence of your associates in guilt. The laws (of the Empire) must be sealed with your blood. Our sentence, therefore, is that Thascius Cyprianus be put to death with the sword."
Cyprian's only rejoiner was: "Thanks be to God."
The glorious end was indeed come for the "standard-bearer " of the Christians, as the Pro-consul had happily styled him. It was a short but triumphal march from the Praetorium to the spot where the doom was to be accomplished. It was to be no secret execution.
The arrest of the loved bishop and his condemnation were soon known to a great crowd of Christian folk. The Roman Governor wished it to be a great example; he had his wish. Guarded closely by a company of the well-known third legion, and followed by a crowd of mourning spectators, Cyprian soon reached the spot where the last scene of this memorable tragedy was to be acted. Quietly the eminent teacher of the Christians took off his upper garments, and, after praying a while, stood upright in his long white linen garment. Then, as it seemed, he waited to see if any message of God came to him to utter; but there was nothing, so he was silent. The executioner arrived, the martyr asked his friends who stood near him to reward the man with a rich guerdon of twenty-five pieces of gold, and with the help of two who were close to him bound a handkerchief over his own eyes. Something in the appearance of Cyprian unnerved the heads-man, and he could not strike; then stepping forward the centurion in command of the escort took his place, determining himself to give the death stroke, and with one blow closed the sad scene. "Thus the blessed Cyprian suffered" were the simple but pathetic words which closed the "Acta," from which we have largely quoted.
The martyrdom of Cyprian at Carthage in A. D. 258 was the signal for a general persecution in North Africa, in accordance with the provisions of the two edicts of Valerian. In Pro-consular Africa there were many victims, in Numidia even more; in other parts of the Empire the cruel edicts against the Christians were carried out with more or less severity; in Palestine, in Coele-Syria, in various populous districts of Asia Minor the communities of the believers counted many martyrs. In Gaul and Spain the edicts were seemingly less rigorously enforced, but even in these distant provinces the Church suffered, though no doubt the invasions or raids of the barbarian tribes to a certain extent occupied the Imperial Government, and secured some immunity for the Christian inhabitants. In Rome the ill-will of the Government was of course conspicuously manifest, and we shall give a somewhat detailed account of the harrying to which the great Christian community in the capital city was subjected in this period of general gloom and distress.