II.]
ST CYPRIAN
17
rather account as our own any true and rightful suggestions of our brethren and colleagues for the common health and weal."[1]
Upon this Augustine's comment is:—
"Here is a passage in which Cyprian records what we also learn in Holy Scripture, that the Apostle Peter, in whom the primacy of the Apostles shines with such exceeding grace, was corrected by the later Apostle Paul, when he adopted a custom in the matter of circumcision at variance with the demand of truth. …[2]
"Wherefore the holy Cyprian, whose dignity is only increased by his humility, who so loves the pattern set by Peter as to use the words; 'giving us thereby a pattern of concord and patience, that we should not pertinaciously love our own opinions, but should rather account as our own any true and rightful suggestions of our brethren and colleagues for the common health and weal'—he, I say, abundantly shows that he was most willing to correct his own opinion, if any one should prove to him that it is as certain that the baptism of Christ can be given by those who have strayed from the fold, as that it could not be lost when they strayed. … Nor should we ourselves venture to assert anything of the kind were we not supported by the unanimous authority of the whole Church to which he himself would unquestionably have yielded, if at that time the truth of this question had been placed beyond dispute by the investigation and decree of a General Council. For if he quotes Peter as an example for his allowing himself quietly and peacefully to be corrected by one junior colleague, how much more readily would he himself, with the Council of his Province, have yielded to the authority of the whole world, when the truth had been thus brought to light? For, indeed, so holy and peaceful a soul would have been more ready to assent to the arguments of any single person who could