CYPRIANUS
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#ion for clerics were considered separately at thesecond council, but immediately after it is ac-cepted that lapsed bishops and clerks couldnever resume orders (Ep. 55, ix.). In Bp. 65Cyprian rests this on the Levitical institutionand on his own visions. In Bp. 67 vi. howeverhe speaks of all bishops being agreed on this.Jn Ep. 72, iii., four years later, the principle ex-tends to presbyters and deacons who had takenpart in a heresy or schism. And at first sight itpresents a singularly contradictory appearanceof laxity that only Novatianists and Donatistsheld the indelibility of orders to be such thattheir recanting bishops resumed their functions(Optatus, i. p. 27).
There are three cases. 1. Therapius, bishopof Bulla, admits Victor, a lapsed presbyter, with-out due penance. Fidus, bishop, reports this tothe third council of sixty-seven bishops (a.D.253), considering that Victor should be re-excom-municated. The council decline to rescind theboon of “ God’s Priest,” but censure Therapius,apparently in his place (Ep. 64 —objurgare et in-struxisse), for neglecting the terms of the secondcouncil without any consultation of the laity.The same letter (ad Fidum , 64) contains animportant decision as to age of baptism, [v.Fidus.]
2. Fortunatus, bishop of Assurae, lapsed, andin his place was elected Epictetus; but the lapsedparty (Ep. 65, v. iii.) on their return claimedfor him the function and emoluments. Theground of order would have been sufficient; butCyprian, with his characteristic error, urges thevitiation of any church function discharged byan unworthy minister, and recommends indi-vidual canvassing, if necessary, to unite the flockunder Epictetus.
3. The most important case is that of Basi-lides and Martial (q. v.), in a.d. 254, when theSpanish churches of Leon, Astorga, and Meridaappeal to Cyprian against the negligent decisionof Stephanus, now bishop of Rome, in favour ofthe restoration of their lapsed bishops. Theletter of the Carthaginian council of thirty-sevenbishops, a.d. 254 (Ep. 67), penned by Cyprian,declares the verdict of the bishop of Rome mis-taken and to be disregarded. This letter alsoinsists on the duty of a laity to withdraw fromcommunion with a “sacrilegious” or “sinful”bishop, and marks the universal sense that thereresided in a congregation no power to make validthe sacramental acts of a nominee who lackedthe note of true orders (Ep. 67, iii.; compareRouth, vol. iii. p. 152).
Practical Organisations and Christian Culture.
(a) Captivity. — During the session of thecouncil an extensive raid was executed by theBerbers, who, severely ruled as they were withoutany attempt to civilise them, were beginningthat steady advance on Numidia which in a fewyears replaced the whole range of Ferratus intheir possession. In 252 their front line reachedfrom Thubunae on the salt-marsh to the tere-binth forests of Tucca, and they deported largenumbers of the Christians of no less than eightsees. Several inscriptions relate to this inva-sion (see Revue Afric. vols. iv. vii. viii.). About800 pounds was subscribed by the sixty bishopsind Carthaginian community (Ep. 62), and sentto them.
(b) Plague .—But the great field on which the
expanding powers of humanity were gatheredup and animated by the church was opened bythe great plague which reached Carthage inA.D. 252, having travelled two years fromEthiopia through Egypt. Great physical dis-turbances had preceded it (ad Deni. ii. 1, vii. 5)The eruption and the brain affection which markedthe plague of Athens are not recorded of this;nor yet the pulmonary symptoms, which, per-haps, were not developed in the African climate.The other symptoms seem to be identical, andthe devastation far more awful, extensive, andenduring. It lasted twenty years ; reduced thepopulation of Alexandria by half; destroyed thearmies of Valerian before Sapor; kept the Gothsoff the Thracian border, and for some time killedfive thousand persons daily in Rome (v. Eutrop.ix. v.; Hist. Aug. Galli, v. p. 177 ; Dionys. ap.Eus. vii. 22; Greg. Nyss. Vit. Greg. Thaum.§ 12). The efforts of the emperors Gallus andValerian in burying the dead were appreciated,otherwise their efforts were confined to suppli-cations to Saturn and Apollo. (See three types ofcoins of Gallus in British Museum, and see Cohen,M€dailles Impfr. vol. iv. p. 270 ; Bandusi, vol. i.p. 58.)
Horrible scenes of desertion and spoliationensued in Carthage as in Athens (Pontii Vit.Gyp. and Gyp. ad Dem. 10 (8) 11 (9)), whenuniversal physical terror or audacity overpoweredall other sentiments. As in Neo-Caesarea andAlexandria so in Carthage, the Christian clergystood out as the first champions of life, health,and feeling. Cyprian addressed his community ina speech, which it was wished could have been de-livered to the city from the rostrum, on the dutyand divineness of prayer and help to the perse-cutors (Respondere Natalibus was his watchword),and then proposed and carried a scheme for thesystematic care of the city. Filled with hismotives and under his influence rich and poorundertook the parts he assigned, raised a largefund, formed a nursing staff and burial stall’,and allowed no religious distinction in theirministrations. But their abstinence from re-ligious processions and sacrifices marked theChristians as enemies of God and man, and the“ Overseer of the Christians ” was demanded byname for a contest with a lion (Epp. 59, viii.;66, 44). The terrible work lasted on till hisexile five years later, as we must conclude fromPontius’ juxtaposition of the events, with hisremark that exile was the reward for “with-drawing from human sight a horror like hell.”
(c) Ad Demetrianum .—Their chief foe was anaged magistrate (sub ipso exitu Dem. 25 (22)), notthe pro-consul (Pearson), but perhaps one of thefive primores, formerly an inquirer into the truthof Christianity, in Cyprian’s own friendship (i.),now himself an inventor of accusations (c. 2)and tortures, xii. (10). The pamphlet in whichCyprian assails him is much wider in its aimthan Tertullian’s ad Scapulam; both have theremonstrance against the suppression of the onenatural worship, the appeal to the demeanourof the now prevalent sect (pars paene majorcujusque civ-itatis) to the effects of exorcism, andthe influence through suffering of the Christians.But while Tertullian for once refrains fromdenunciation, and is almost gentle in his exam-ples of warning, Cyprian’s object is wider; heanswers the question, “ Whence all this political