be noticed that (as the Novatianists saw) Cyprian had a real point of contact with Novatianism. In the instance of Lapse he discovered its fallacy. In the instance of Heresy he fell into it. The visible church, according to him, included the worst moral sinner in expectation of his penitence; it excluded the most virtuous and orthodox baptized Christian who had not been baptized by a catholic minister.[1] Nevertheless, although the Roman church then took a wider view than Cyprian as to the sonship of man to God, Cyprian was much greater (and this is the true church-moral of this part of his history) upon the possibility and duty of union in diversity. Augustine well draws out the independence of thought and action which Cyprian wished to be maintained without exclusiveness, and tells us (Aug. v. de Bapt. 17) how he was never weary of reading the conclusion of the Ep. to Quintus. Every bishop was free to judge for himself, none to be persecuted for his views, and therefore every one to be tender of the bonds of peace: "Salvo jure communionis diversa sentire." The unanimity of such early councils and their erroneousness are a remarkable monition. Not packed, not pressed; the question broad; no attack on an individual; only a principle sought; the assembly representative; each bishop the elect of his flock; and all "men of the world," often christianized, generally ordained late in life; converted against their interests by conviction formed in an age of freest discussion; their Chief one in Whom were rarely blended intellectual and political ability, with holiness, sweetness, and self-discipline. The conclusion reached by such an assembly uncharitable, unscriptural, uncatholic, and unanimous. The consolation as strange as the disappointment. The mischief silently and perfectly healed by the simple working of the Christian society. Life corrected the error of thought. Augustine beautifully writes: "It is of no light moment that though the question was agitated among bishops of an age anterior to the faction of Donatus, and although opinions differed without the unity of the colleagues being marred, still this our present use has been settled to be observed throughout the whole Catholic church diffused throughout the world" (contra Crescon. i. xxxii. 38). The disappearance of the Cyprianic decisions has its hope for us when we look on bonds seemingly inextricable, and steps as yet irretrievable. It may be noted, as affording some clue to the one-sided decisions, that the laity were silent, though Cyprian seemed pledged to some consultation with them. (See esp. Ep. 31 and 19, ii.) It must have been among them that there were in existence and at work those very principles which so soon not only rose to the surface, but overpowered the voices of her bishops for the general good. It was a parliament of officials, provincial governors. That it did not represent church opinion (that, namely, which we now accept as church doctrine), may be inferred—(1) from the absolute unanimity of the 87 utterances; (2) from the strange avowal of two, that, being incompetent to give an opinion, they vote with the majority; (3) from the very important and powerful contemporary work of the "Auctor de Rebaptismate"; (4) from the silent reversal of the decision.
The Last Persecution.—Of the 31 Numidian bishops who sat in the great council, the next glimpse of church offices shews 9 as convicts[2] in the mines metallum Siguense (? Siga, where there were copper-mines in Mauritania, or Siguita in Numidia itself) and in two other places.[3] A subdeacon and four acolytes were commissioned by the metropolitan (already himself an exile) and his friend Quirinus to visit them, and supply them with necessaries (Epp. 77‒79). Cyprian had been apprehended, as perhaps the first African prisoner (Epp. 77‒78), in Aug. A.D. 257. Valerian's first edict (Acta Proconsulis, and Acta Praef. Augustalis) had then been issued on the suggestion of Macrianus, a principal patron of the Egyptian "Magi," after a long administration of fairness to the Christians. The "eighth" persecution lasted the Apocalyptic 42 months until his death in 260. (Dion. Al. ap. Pearson, Ann. Cyp. p. 59; Eus. vii. 10, v. ii. 70.) On Aug. 2, 257, before the exile of Cyprian, Stephen died. His reputation as a martyr, dating from the 6th cent., is due to a transference to him of incidents from the death of Xystus, of which the singular history is traced by de Rossi, Roma Sott. Cr. vol. ii. p. 85, etc. He was succeeded on Aug. 25 by Xystus,[4] whom, not without a stroke at the dead lion, Pontius calls "a good pacific high-priest." No "state enemy" could be treated with more consideration than Cyprian received. Aspasius Paternus, the proconsul, heard him in secretario, and without confiscation or personal restraint simply required his retirement to Curubis, a free town, near the sea (in deserto loco), lonely, but pleasant, and well supplied (Pontius; cf. Gibbon, vol. ii. 248, Smith's ed.). It was at the same time that the withdrawal of Dionysius was ordered and performed (Eus. vii. 11). On Sept. 14 a dream, related at once to his friends, was found after his martyrdom to have foretold it for that day year. Attended by his deacon, and allowed the presence of friends, and "offering," no doubt, as in his former banishment, "his daily sacrifice," he actively organized relief for more helpless sufferers and subsidized them largely himself.[5] After 11 months spent thus, the new proconsul Galerius Maximus, already a dying man, recalled him to his home in Carthage (horti). When a rumour arrived that Marcianus,
- ↑ Thus the extreme of sacerdotalism was a fixed tenet with our own Puritan divines, who held the minister "to be of the substance of the sacrament." Cf. Hooker, Ec. Pol. V. lxi. 5; Neander, vol. i. p. 540, Bohn tr.
- ↑ Morcelli, Africa Christiana, vol. i. p. 21, questions whether the separate Praeses Numidiae was continued long after Septimius, apparently not noticing (Cyp. Ep. 77, ii.) that these confessors were tried before the Praeses.
- ↑ Pearson supposes a marble-quarry to be their work-place—tenebrae and teter odor fumi indicate mining and smelting rather.
- ↑ See these calculations in Lipsius, Chron. d. Röm. Bisch. p. 213.
- ↑ Gibbon strangely seems to have understood the words documentum professionis dedit (i.e. taught how to hold fast our profession) to mean "an account of his behaviour was published for the edification of the Christian world" (Ep. 77).
