Chronol. p. 200) out of reach, and, with the same determination with which he afterwards pronounced that his time was come, refused concealment. The grounds for his retirement, consistently stated by himself, are the necessity of continuing the administration (Ep. 12, i. v. vi.), the danger which at Carthage he would have attracted to others (Epp. 7, 14.), the riots it would have aroused (Ep. 43), and the insistence of Tertullus (Epp. 12, 14.). The Cyprianic epistles of this period, passing between the Roman presbyters, the Carthaginian bishop and certain imprisoned presbyters (Moyses, Maximus), deacons (Rufinus and Nicostratus), laymen, and particularly an imperfectly educated Carthaginian confessor Celerinus (whose ill-spelt letters Epp. 21 and 22 are extant), present, when worked out, a tesselated coherence with each other and with slight notices in Eusebius (vi. 43), which is absolutely convincing as to the originality and genuineness of the documents.
The Lapsi.—Five commissioners in each town and the proconsul on circuit (Epp. 43, iii.; 10; 56) administered the Decian edict. The sufferings by torture, stifling imprisonments, and even fire (14, 21) were very severe (Ep. 22). Women and boys were among the victims. Exile and confiscation were employed. In the first terror there was a large voluntary abjuration of Christianity, whether literally by "the majority of his flock" (Ep. 11) may be uncertain, but Cyprian felt himself "seated in the ruins of his house." Scenes of painful vividness are touched in, but these must be passed by. Many of the clergy fell or fled, leaving scarcely enough for the daily duty of the city (Epp. 34, iv.; 40; 29), as did many provincial bishops (Epp. 11, 59). Different classes of those who conformed were the Thurificati, Sacrificati (the more heinous) (Ep. 59), and Libellatici, (q.v. in D. C. A., as also Libelli), whose self-excision was less palpable. Of this class there were some thousands (Ep. 24).
Formation of a General Policy.—Cyprian from his retirement guided the policy of the whole West upon the tremendous questions of church communion which now arose. (1) Indifferentism offered the lapsed an easy return by means of indulgences from, or in the names of, martyrs. (2) Puritanism barred all return. The Roman clergy first essayed to deal with the question in conjunction with the clergy of Carthage independently of Cyprian, whose absence they invidiously deplore (Ep. viii.). Their letter was returned to them by Cyprian himself, with some caustic remarks on its style (which are singularly incorrect; see Hartel's Praefatio, xlviii.) as well as on the irregularity of the step. After this an altered tone, and Novatian's marked style, is discernible in their letters (Epp. 30 and ? 36).
The granting of indulgences (not by that name) to lapsed persons, by confessors and martyrs, which had been first questioned and then sharply criticised by Tertullian (ad Mart. 1; de Pudic. 22), grew very quickly under the influence of some of those clergy who had opposed Cyprian's election. The veneration for sufferers who seemed actually to be the saviours of Christianity was intense, and many heads were turned by the adulatory language of their greatest chiefs (cf. Ep. x. 24). Their libelli would presently have superseded all other terms of communion.
A strange document (Ep. 23) is extant in the form of an absolution to "all the lapsed" from "all the confessors," which the bishops are desired to promulgate. Rioters in some of the provincial towns extorted communion from their presbyters (Ep. 27, iii.). At Rome itself the influence of Novatian with the confessors created a tendency to strictness rather than indulgence, and there were no such disorders, but they prevailed elsewhere (Epp. 27, 31, 32 ; Ep. 30, iv. 4; 30, vii.). Cyprian at once proposed by separate letters to his clergy and laity (to whom he writes with warm confidence), to various bishops, and to the Roman confessors and clergy (Epp. 15, 16, 17, 26), one general course of action: to reserve all cases of lapsed, without regard to the confessors' libelli, until episcopal councils at Rome and Carthage should lay down terms of readmission for the deserving (Ep. 20; 55, iv.); then the bishops, with clergy and laity (Ep. 17, iv.; Ep. 31) assisting, to investigate each case; public acknowledgment to be made, readmission to be by imposition of hands by bishop and clergy. Meantime the acts of the confessors to be recognized (Ep. 20, iii.) so far as that persons in danger, who might hold a libellus, should be readmitted by any presbyter, or in extremis by a deacon (Epp. 18, 19). All others to be exhorted to repentance, and commended with prayer to God at their deaths. The grounds he urged were—(1) the wideness of the question, which was too large for individual discretion (totius orbis, Ep. 19, iii. cf. 30, vi.). (2) That if restored at once the lapsed would have fared better than those who had borne the loss of all for Christ. These principles are developed also in the de Lapsis, which, however, is not quite as M. Freppel describes it, "a résumé of the letters," but a résumé of the modified views of Cyprian a little later. In M. Freppel's Sorbonne Lectures (St. Cyprien, pp. 195‒221) may be studied with profit the Ultramontane representation of this scheme as equivalent to the modern indulgence system, backed by assertions that the Roman church "indicated to Carthage the only course," which Cyprian "fully adopted." All, however, that the Roman clergy had recommended was mere readmission of sick penitents, without any conception of a policy, or of the method by which it could be worked. These are developed step by step in Epp. 17, 18, 19, and communicated to the Roman church (Ep. 20). In replying through Novatian (Ep. 30, see 55 v.) the Roman presbyters re-state and adopt them (cf. Ep. 31, vi. 41).
Temper in Carthage.—Through the earlier part of the above section of correspondence is perceptible a reliance on the laity. The clergy do not reply to his letters (Ep. 18), they defer to the libelli, or use them against him (Ep. 27). In Ep. 17 he entreats the aid of the laity against them. When the concurrence of the African and Italian episcopate is obtained (Ep. 43, iii.), and that of Novatian and the Roman clergy and confessors (Epp. 30, 31), assuming a stronger tone (Ep. 32) with his own clergy, he requires them to circulate the whole correspondence, which is done (Ep. 55,
