“The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.”
The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.
Cyprian · The Treatises · ANF V, On the Unity of the Church, Treatise I, 5
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 is one episcopate which every bishop holds entire — so a bishop who breaks with the rest has not taken part of it away with him, he has stepped outside it.
How this is known
These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.
Quoted from the Ante-Nicene Fathers translation this project holds in full, and checked against those bytes at every rebuild — the words, the work and the place in it.
Read in Wallis, ANF vol. 5 (1886) · Ernest Wallis
Also by
- Cyprian every saying recorded of this person, and their page