Cyprian
Bishop of Carthage and Christian writer (c.210-258)
b. c. 200 · d. 14 Sep 258
5th Archbishop of Carthage · c. 249–c. 258 · dates here from Wikipedia’s list of bishops; Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae reads 248–258
Offices
- Archbishop of Carthage № 5 · c. 249 – c. 258
Cyprian was a bishop of Carthage and an early Christian writer of Berber descent, many of whose Latin works are extant. He is recognized as a saint in the Western and Eastern churches.
Works
- De ecclesiae catholicae unitate
- De mortalitate
- Ad Demetrianum
- De dominica oratione
- Ad Donatum
- Ad Fortunatum
- De bono patientiae
- De habitu virginum
- De lapsis
- De opere et eleemosynis
- De zelo et livore
- Ad Quirinum
- Epistolae 1 (Cyprianus Carthaginensis)
- To Demetrius
- On the Unity of the Catholic Church
- Three Books of Testimonies to Quirinus
Events
Commemorated
Places
How we know
Recorded as a historical figure.
- De Viris Illustribus 3 claims — Cyprian is made bishop of Carthage; The Novatianist schism begins; The martyrdom of Cyprian
- Ecclesiastical History 1 claim — Valerianic persecution
- Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae 1 claim — Series episcoporum p. 463, 'Carthago, Sedes primatialis' - 5th entry, '248 sed. S. Cyprianus, + martyr 14. IX. 258'
- Patrology 1 claim — Cyprian and Stephen quarrel over rebaptism
Sayings
- Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Written to a bishop who had listened to accusations against Cyprian himself. The claim is mutual and it is the reason a succession list is worth keeping: the bishop is not an…
- to the throne of Peter, and to the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Cyprian to Cornelius of Rome, complaining that his African opponents had sailed to Rome with their case. Read beside his own book On the Unity, where the episcopate is one and…
- The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — The sentence this whole dataset is an attempt to draw. Cyprian is arguing against the Novatianist schism, and his claim is not that one bishop outranks the others but that there…
Show all 5
- He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — The most quoted line in Latin Christianity after scripture, and it is a sentence about schism rather than about unbelief: the man Cyprian means has left, not never arrived. The…
- if not even the baptism of a public confession and blood can profit a heretic to salvation, because there is no salvation out of the Church Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — The origin of salus extra ecclesiam non est, and its setting is narrower than the phrase became: Cyprian is arguing that a heretic who is martyred outside the Church is not…
What he held
- Baptism outside the Church is void A baptism administered outside the communion of the Church confers nothing, and one who comes over must be baptized.
In the disputes
- The rebaptism controversy Cyprian of Carthage and Stephen of Rome disagreed, sharply, about whether a baptism given outside the church's communion is a baptism at all.