Part 28 (1/2)
The tract ent.i.tled _On the Unity of the Catholic Church_ is the most famous of Cyprians works. As the theory there developed is opposed to that which became dominant, and as Cyprian was regarded as the great upholder of the Churchs const.i.tution, interpolations were early made in the text which seriously distort the sense.
These interpolations are to-day abandoned by all scholars. The best critical edition of the works of Cyprian is by W. von Hartel in the CSEL, but critical texts of the following pa.s.sage with references to literature and indication of interpolations may be found in Mirbt (Prot.), n. 52, and in Kirch (R. C.), n. 234 (chapter 4 only).
Ch. 4. The Lord speaks to Peter, saying: I say unto thee, that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of h.e.l.l shall not prevail against it. I will give thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven (Matt. 16:18, 19). [To the same He says after His resurrection: Feed my sheep (John 21:15). Upon him He builds His Church, and to him He commits His sheep to be fed, and although. _Interpolation._] Upon one he builds the Church, although also to all the Apostles after His resurrection He gives an equal power and says, As the Father has sent me, I also send you: receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye retain, they shall be retained (John 20:21); yet, that He might show the unity, [He founded one see. _Interpolation._] He arranged by His authority the origin of that unity as beginning from one. a.s.suredly the rest of the Apostles were also what Peter was, with a like partners.h.i.+p both of honor and power; but the beginning proceeds from unity [and the primacy is given to Peter. _Interpolation._], that there might be shown to be one Church of Christ [and one see. And they are all shepherds, but the flock is shown to be one which is fed by the Apostles with unanimous consent.
_Interpolation._]. Which one Church the Holy Spirit also in the Song of Songs designates in the person of the Lord and says: My dove, my spotless one, is but one. She is the only one of her mother, chosen of her that bare her (Cant. 6:9). Does he who does not hold this unity of the Church [unity of Peter. _Corrupt reading._] think that he holds the faith? Does he who strives against and resists the Church [who deserts the chair of Peter. _Interpolation._] trust that he is in the Church, when, moreover, the blessed Apostle Paul teaches the same things and sets forth the sacrament of unity, saying, There is one body and one spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one G.o.d? (Eph. 4:4.)
Ch. 5. And this unity we ought to hold firmly and a.s.sert, especially we bishops who preside in the Church, that we may prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a falsehood; let no one corrupt the truth by a perfidious prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one in its entirety.
The Church, also, is one which is spread abroad far and wide into a mult.i.tude by an increase of fruitfulness. As there are many rays of the sun, but one light, and many branches of a tree, but one strength based upon its tenacious root, and since from one spring flow many streams, although the multiplicity seems diffused in the liberality of an overflowing abundance, yet the unity is still preserved in its source.
(_b_) Firmilian of Cesarea, _Ep. ad Cyprianum_, in Cyprian, _Ep. 74_ [=75]. (MSL, 3:1024.)
The matter in dispute was the rebaptism of those heretics who had received baptism before they conformed to the Church. See 52. It was the burning question after the rise of the Novatian sect.
Stephen, bishop of Rome (254-257), had excommunicated a number of churches and bishops, among them probably Cyprian himself. See the epistle of Dionysius to Sixtus of Rome, the successor of Stephen, in Eusebius, _Hist. Ec._, VII, 5. He (Stephen) therefore had written previously concerning Helenus and Firmilia.n.u.s and all those in Cilicia, Cappadocia, Galatia, and the neighboring countries, saying that he would not communicate with them for this same cause: namely, that they rebaptized heretics. This att.i.tude of Stephen roused no little resentment in the East, as is shown by the indignant tone of Firmilian, who recognizes no authority in Rome. The text may be found in Mirbt, n. 74, and in part in Kirch, n. 274. The epistle of Firmilian is to be found among the epistles of Cyprian, to whom it was written.
Ch. 2. We may in this matter give thanks to Stephen that it has now happened through his unkindness [inhumanity] that we receive proof of your faith and wisdom.
Ch. 3. But let these things which were done by Stephen be pa.s.sed by for the present, lest, while we remember his audacity and pride, we bring a more lasting sadness on ourselves from the things he has wickedly done.
Ch. 6. That they who are at Rome do not observe those things in all cases which have been handed down from the beginning, and vainly pretend the authority of the Apostles, any one may know; also, from the fact that concerning the celebration of the day of Easter, and concerning many other sacraments of divine matters, one may see that there are some diversities among them, and that all things are not observed there alike which are observed at Jerusalem; just as in very many other provinces also many things are varied because of the difference of places and names, yet on this account there is no departure at all from the peace and unity of the Catholic Church. And this departure Stephen has now dared to make; breaking the peace against you, which his predecessors have always kept with you in mutual love and honor, even herein defaming Peter and Paul, the blessed Apostles, as if the very men delivered this who in their epistles execrated heretics and warned us to avoid them. Whence it appears that this tradition is human which maintains heretics, and a.s.serts that they have baptism, which belongs to the Church alone.
Ch. 17. And in this respect I am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of Stephen, that he who so boasts of the place of his episcopate and contends that he holds the succession of Peter, on whom the foundation of the Church was laid, should introduce many other rocks and establish new buildings of many churches, maintaining that there is a baptism in them by his authority; for those who are baptized, without doubt, make up the number of the Church. Stephen, who announces that he holds by succession the throne of Peter, is stirred with no zeal against heretics, when he concedes to them, not a moderate, but the very greatest power of grace.
Ch. 19. This, indeed, you Africans are able to say against Stephen, that when you knew the truth you forsook the error of custom. But we join custom to truth, and to the Romans custom we oppose custom, but the custom of truth, holding from the beginning that which was delivered by Christ and the Apostles. Nor do we remember that this at any time began among us, since it has always been observed here, that we have known none but one Church of G.o.d, and have accounted no baptism holy except that of the holy Church.
Ch. 24. Consider with what want of judgment you dare to blame those who strive for the truth against falsehood.(82) For how many strifes and dissensions have you stirred up throughout the churches of the whole world! Moreover, how great sin have you heaped up for yourself, when you cut yourself off from so many flocks! For it is yourself that you have cut off. Do not deceive yourself, since he is really the schismatic who has made himself an apostate from the communion of ecclesiastical unity. For while you think that all may be excommunicated by you, you have alone excommunicated yourself from all; and not even the precepts of an Apostle have been able to mould you to the rule of truth and peace.(83)
Ch. 25. How carefully has Stephen fulfilled these salutary commands and warnings of the Apostle, keeping in the first place lowliness of mind and meekness! For what is more lowly or meek than to have disagreed with so many bishops throughout the whole world, breaking peace with each one of them in various kinds of discord: at one time with the Easterns, as we are sure is not unknown to you; at another time with you who are in the south, from whom he received bishops as messengers sufficiently patiently and meekly as not to receive them even to the speech of common conference; and, even more, so unmindful of love and charity as to command the whole brotherhood that no one should receive them into his house, so that not only peace and communion, but also a shelter and entertainment were denied to them when they came. This is to have kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, to cut himself off from the unity of love, and to make himself a stranger in all things to his brethren, and to rebel against the sacrament and the faith with the madness of contumacious discord. Stephen is not ashamed to afford patronage to such a position in the Church, and for the sake of maintaining heretics to divide the brotherhood; and, in addition, to call Cyprian a false Christ, and a false Apostle, and a deceitful worker, and he, conscious that all these characters are for himself, has been in advance of you by falsely objecting to another those things which he himself ought to bear.
52. Controversy over Baptism by Heretics
In the great persecutions schisms arose in connection with the administration of discipline (_cf._ 46). The schismatics held in general the same faith as the main body of Christians. Were the sacraments they administered to be regarded, then, as valid in such a sense that when they conformed to the Catholic Church, which they frequently did, they need not be baptized, having once been validly baptized; or should their schismatic baptism be regarded as invalid and they be required to receive baptism on conforming if they had not previously been baptized within the Church? Was baptism outside the unity of the Church valid? Rome answered in the affirmative, admitting conforming schismatics without distinguis.h.i.+ng as to where they had been baptized; North Africa answered in the negative and required not, indeed, a second baptism, but claimed that the Churchs baptism was alone valid, and that if the person conforming had been baptized in schism he had not been baptized at all. This view was shared by at least some churches in Asia Minor (_cf._ 51, _b_), and possibly elsewhere. It became the basis of the Donatist position (_cf._ 62), which schism shared with the Novatian schism the opinion, generally rejected by the Church, that the validity of a sacrament depended upon the spiritual condition of the minister of the sacrament, _e.g._, whether he was in schism or not.
Additional source material: Seventh Council of Carthage (ANF, vol.
V); Eusebius, _Hist. Ec._, VII, 7:4-6; Augustine, _De Baptismo contra Donatistas_, Bk. III (PNF, ser. I, vol. IV).
(_a_) Cyprian, _Ep. ad Jubianum_, _Ep._ 73, 7 [=72]. (MSL, 3:1159, 168.)
A portion of this epistle may be found in Mirbt, n. 70.
Ch. 7. It is manifest where and by whom the remission of sins can be given, _i.e._, that remission which is given by baptism. For first of all the Lord gave the power to Peter, upon whom He built the Church, and whence he appointed and showed the source of unity, the power, namely, that that should be loosed in heaven which he loosed on earth [John 20:21 quoted]. When we perceive that only they who are set over the Church and established in the Gospel law and in the ordinance of the Lord are allowed to baptize and to give remission of sins, we see that outside of the Church nothing can be bound or loosed, for there there is no one who can either bind or loose anything.