He nowhere suggests that S. Cyprian means by the "matrix et radix" the local Church of Rome or the see of Rome. When he speaks of "cette tige, cette racine de l'unité," he is referring chiefly to the unity which binds into one all the successive generations of the Church through the tradition of the one faith and through the succession of the apostolic ministry, though he refers also to the unity which knits together the various churches existing in different places at any one epoch. I have no objection to describe one aspect of Bossuet's view of S. Cyprian's meaning in the words of Dr. Rivington, when he says that the "root" "is the Church putting herself forth in a long chain of teachers." I do not see that anywhere in his discussion of S. Cyprian's teaching does Bossuet attribute to that Father the view that this operation must be carried out "within the unity of the Chair of Peter." No doubt that was Bossuet's own theory, but he does not, so far as I am aware, impute it in his Pastoral Instruction to S. Cyprian. It is really too bad of Dr. Rivington to say that "then Bossuet proceeds to explain this root of unity more fully," whereupon he quotes a passage from Bossuet's Instruction Pastorale, eleven pages further on, in which the Bishop of Meaux gives his own personal views,3 of the relation of the papacy to ecclesiastical unity, saying nothing about S. Cyprian or about the expression "radix et matrix." In the course of those intervening eleven pages Bossuet had discussed the opinions of Tertullian, S. Clement of Alexandria, and S. Bernard, and also other matters; so that the later passage is in no sort of way an explanation of the Cyprianic phrase.

NOTE 42 (see note 2 on p. 83).-Dr. Rivington thinks that "no one would talk of acknowledging the Catholic Church." But surely, when speaking of a place, where there were rival bodies, it would be most natural to tell people intending to travel, that they ought to make inquiries, and to be careful to acknowledge and hold fast to that body which enjoyed, or clearly had a right to enjoy, the communion of the Catholic episcopate. By acting in this way the travellers would, as far as in them lay, acknowledge and hold fast to her who was the root and womb of their regenerate life. Dr. Rivington also thinks that it is "the bishop, who is the root and womb of the Church." I find it hard to believe that any instance can be found of a bishop being called "the womb of the Church." It is a very strange way of describing him. But it is not at all strange to speak of the Catholic Church as the root and womb of her children." Apparently Dr. Rivington thinks that S. Cyprian is speaking only of the instructions which he gave to people sailing "to Rome."7 But there is nothing in S. Cyprian's forty-eighth letter to suggest this limitation, although no doubt a large number of those, who sailed from Africa, would 1 Prim. Ch., P. 466.

2 Euvres, xxii. 423, 424.

3 Bossuet illustrates his view by quoting a passage from S. Optatus of Mileum. Prim. Ch., p. 465.

5 Loc. cit.

6

S. Cyprian uses the word "matrix" to denote the Catholic Church in his Ep. Ixxi, ad Quintum, § 2 (Opp., ii. 772), and also in his treatise, De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, § 23 (Opp., i. 231).

Prim. Ch., u.s.

be on their way to Rome. S. Cyprian's advice was so worded that it would be applicable in any place where schismatic bodies were established alongside of the Catholic Church, even though there might happen to be a vacancy in the Catholic see.

NOTE 43 (see note 3 on p. 83). S. Cyprian's use of the genitive of apposition. One may compare the parallel expression, "radicem adque originem traditionis dominicae" in Ep. lxiii. ad Caecilium, § 1.1 It is clear from § 2 that the traditio dominica is equivalent to "quod pro nobis Dominus prior fecit," and the expression "traditionis dominicae " is in the genitive of apposition. Similarly in Ep. lxxiv. ad Pompeium, § 10, S. Cyprian says, “Si ad divinae traditionis caput et originem revertamur." A comparison of § 10 with § 11 seems to show that the expression "divinae traditionis" is also in the genitive of apposition. But in fact this use of the genitive case is very common in S. Cyprian's writings.

NOTE 44 (see note 2 on p. 84). On the meaning of the word" caput” in certain Cyprianic passages.—“We who hold the fountain-head (caput) and root." It is clear to me that the word "caput," as used by S. Cyprian in this passage and in some other parallel passages, ought to be translated "fountain-head" or "source." Readers of Horace will remember the line in the first ode of the first book, in which occur the words, "Nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae." And there is a sentence in S. Cyprian's letter to Pompeius,' in which there can be no question that "caput" means "fountain-head." S. Cyprian says, "ut si canalis aquam ducens . . . subito deficiat, nonne ad fontem pergitur, ut illic defectionis ratio noscatur, utrumne arescentibus venis in capite unda siccaverit,” 5 etc. But this metaphor of a man seeking at the fountain-head the reason for the failure of the water is brought in by S. Cyprian to explain what he had been saying in the previous clause of the same sentence, in which the following words occur :-"Si ad divinae traditionis caput et originem revertamur, cessat error humanus." 0 It is obvious that "caput " here has the same meaning of "fountain-head" or "source," and one sees at once how natural it is to couple "caput" in that sense with "origo." But this same combination of "caput" with "origo" occurs in S. Cyprian's treatise De Zelo et Livore, and also in his better-known treatise, De Cath. Eccl. Unit., where the Church is called "the fountain-head and source of truth" (veritatis caput adque originem). Similarly the same combination occurs in two earlier passages of the treatise on Unity; first of all in $ 3, where S. Cyprian says that men, deceived by Satan, leave the

1 Opp., ii. 701.

2 Ibid., ii. 808.

3 S. Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. ad Jubaianum, § 2, Opp., ii. 779.

4

Ep. Ixxiv. § 10, Opp., ii. 808.

5 "As if a conduit conveying water . . . should suddenly fail, do we not go to the fountain, that there the reason of the failure may be ascertained, whether, the springs having run dry, the water has dried up at the fountain-head?"

"If we return to the fountain-head and source of divine tradition, human

Church and join the sects, "when they do not have recourse to the source of truth (ad veritatis originem), and do not seek the fountain-head (nec caput quaeritur),1 and do not guard the doctrine of the heavenly teaching" (magisterii caelestis); and secondly, in § 5, where, contrasting the unity of the whole Church with the multiplicity of her children, he says that the Church "pours abroad her streams which flow forth abundantly, yet that there is one fountain-head and one source and one mother having an abundance of children, the issue of her fruitfulness" (unum tamen caput est et origo una et una mater fecunditatis successibus copiosa).2 Here" caput and "origo" are joined with "mater," and that conjunction would suggest that we might find instances of the combination of either of these words or both of them, with "matrix" or with radix." 773 As a matter of fact we find in Ad Fortunatum"origo et radix,” in Ad Demetrianum 5 "radicis adque originis," in the letter to Caecilius "radicem adque originem," and finally in the letter to Jubaianus,7 "caput et radicem ;" and this last is the passage which gave rise to this discussion. It appears, therefore, that "caput" is used in this passage in the sense of "fountainhead" or 66 source."

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NOTE 45 (see note 4 on p. 84).-Although Jubaianus, no less than Cyprian and his fellow-bishops of Africa and Numidia, was in communion with the one Catholic Church, yet Dr. Rivington is mistaken in his idea that Jubaianus is included in the "nos." 10 He had not as yet joined Cyprian and his adherents in drawing the conclusion that the baptism administered by Novatian was invalid. All through this early part of the letter "nos" is contrasted with "tu."

NOTE 46 (see note 5 on pp. 84, 85). A celebrated Cyprianic passage guarded from misinterpretation.-It seems almost incredible, but it is the

66

It is plain that Dr. Rivington is mistaken, when, commenting on the words, nec caput quaeritur," he says (Prim. Ch., p. 61), "The head is the bishop viewed as the heir of the promises made to Peter." In an earlier passage of his book (Prim. Ch., p. 49), Dr. Rivington had given a completely different interpretation of the words "nec caput quaeritur," an interpretation which in its substance is not far from the truth, though it is based on a wrong view of the meaning of " caput.'

2 Opp., i. 214.

"Radix" is joined with "mater" in Ep. xlv. ad Cornelium, § 1, Opp., ii. 600, and with " matrix” in Ep. xlviii. ad Cornelium, § 3, Opp., ii. 607.

4

§ 11, Opp., i. 338.

6

Ep. lxiii. ad Caecilium, § 1, Opp., ii. 701.

§ 2, Opp., i. 352.

Ep. lxxiii. ad Jubaianum, § 2, Opp., ii. 779.

Dr. Rivington tries (Prim. Ch., p. 464) to bolster up his theory that in this passage the " caput et radix" of the Church is Pope Stephen, by quoting S. Cyprian's words to the effect that the party of Novatian had set up "an adulterous and opposed head outside the Church" (see Ep. xlv. ad Cornelium, § 1, Opp., ii. 600). But in that letter to Cornelius, written five years earlier, the word " caput" is used in the sense of "head or bishop of the local Church of Rome. The schismatics had made Novatian the pseudo-bishop of Rome. Whereas here S. Cyprian is speaking of the Catholic Church as the fountain-head and root of individual Christians. The word ". caput " is used in a totally different sense, so that the two passages have no bearing, the one on the other. • Prim. Ch., p. 85, n. 2.

་་

10"Nos autem qui ecclesiae unius caput et radicem tenemus" (Ep. lxxiii. § 2).

1

fact that Dr. Rivington, commenting on the words in S. Cyprian's treatise on the Unity of the Church," unum tamen caput est et origo una et una mater fecunditatis successibus copiosa," glosses them as follows:"meaning the Church and Peter, whom Christ instituted as the 'origin of unity.'" He goes on to say that in that passage S. Cyprian " sees in the legitimate bishop the Peter for the time being." Those who are familiar with the paragraph in question will remember that S. Peter is not mentioned in it; nor is a word said about "the legitimate bishop" being "the Peter for the time being." The statements in Dr. Rivington's gloss are pure romance. The passage, which gave rise to this astounding comment, together with the sentences which immediately precede it, grows out of and is intended to illustrate the following statement: "The Church is one, and she is spread abroad far and wide, so as to become a multitude, through the increase of her fruitfulness." S. Cyprian follows up this statement by a series of analogies taken from nature, which emphasize the contrast between the unity of the Church and the multiplicity of her progeny. The Church is compared to the one sun, and to the one tree, and to the one spring, and to the one mother; while we, her children, are compared to the many rays, and to the many branches, and to the many streams, and to the many descendants. But it will be best to give the passage in full. It runs thus: "As there are many rays of the sun, yet but one light; and as there are many branches of the tree, yet but one oak secured by its tenacious root; and as when from one spring there flow down many streams, although multiplicity seems to be diffused through the bountifulness of the overflowing abundance, nevertheless unity is preserved in the source (in origine). Separate a ray of the sun from its body [of light], the unity of the light suffers no division; break a branch from the tree, the broken branch will not be able to bud; cut off a stream from the spring, the stream so cut off dries up. So also the Church, flooded with the light of the Lord, puts forth her rays all over the whole world; nevertheless it is one light which is everywhere diffused, nor does the unity of the body suffer division. So she [the Church] stretches out her branches over the whole earth by the abundance of her productiveness; she extends far and wide her streams issuing forth in copious outflow: nevertheless there is one fountainhead (caput) and one source (origo) and one mother prolific in children, the issue of her fruitfulness. By her bringing forth we are born, by her milk we are nourished, by her life we are quickened." It will be seen that there is no reference here to the "legitimate bishop" as being "the Peter for the time being," nor to "Peter whom Christ instituted as 'the origin of unity.'" The passage is entirely taken up with the relation of the Church as a whole in her unity to the children of the

'S. Cypr. de Cath. Eccl. Unit., § 5, Opp., i. 214.

2 Prim. Ch., p. 464.

3 S. Cypr., loc. cit.

So Dom Maran, in the preface to the Benedictine S. Cyprian (p. vii.), speaking of the passage of the De Unitate, quoted in the text, rightly says, non ecclesiae particularis, sed universalis sive catholicae unitas describitur; and again a little lower down Dom Maran, speaking of that same passage, says, "Sanctus martyr unum toto orbe episcopatum commendat."

Church in their multiplicity. Peter, in S. Cyprian's view, was the firstcalled Apostle,' and so for a transient moment the Church's unity was embodied in him, and thus he was the historical commencement of that unity. In that sense he was the "origo unitatis ;" and S. Cyprian dwells on the fact in the preceding section of this treatise. But here he is dealing, not with the historical commencement (origo) of the Church's unity, but with the Church in her unity as the perennial source (origo) of her children in their multiplicity.

NOTE 47 (see note I on p. 85).—Dr. Rivington, commenting on my words -"S. Cyprian was opposing Pope Stephen," says, "This is an anachronism. Stephen had not yet appeared on the scene." That, however, is not the view taken by the learned President of the Bollandists. He agrees with Archbishop Tizzani that even in S. Cyprian's epistle to Quintus, an epistle which was written some time before the epistle to Jubaianus, “it seems clear enough that Cyprian treats with scorn (sugillare) the decision on the subject of the baptism of heretics, which had been published by Stephen." It is true, no doubt, that Stephen's decision in the African controversy was sent to Carthage after the letter to Jubaianus had been written; but, as Father De Smedt points out, the decision, which was treated with scorn in the letter to Quintus, would be the decision promulgated by Stephen in the controversy about re-baptism, which he had been carrying on with the Easterns. Stephen had in that controversy already declared his view about re-baptism, and had tried to enforce that view by excommunicating the Oriental bishops, who refused to conform to it. So that it is not correct to say that, when the letter to Jubaianus was written, "Stephen had not yet appeared on the scene." Moreover it seems pretty clear, as De Smedt also points out, that in the concluding paragraphs of the letter to Jubaianus Cyprian "is carping at Stephen."8

NOTE 48 (see note I on p. 88).—It is true that in the greater part of his treatise, De Unitate, S. Cyprian is dealing rather with the unity of each local church than with the unity of the whole Catholic Church. Nevertheless

1 But see the note on p. 88.

2 Similarly S. Cyprian speaks (De Bono Patientiae, § 10, Opp., i. 403) of Abel as initiating the "originem martyrii," because, historically, he was the first martyr.

3 De Cath. Eccl. Unit., § 4, Opp., i. 213.

✦ I was speaking of the earlier part of the year 256, when S. Cyprian's letter to Jubaianus was written.

5 Prim. Ch., p. 85, n. 2.

De Smedt, Dissert. Sel., p. 226. Compare also Archbishop Benson's Cyprian, pp. 346, 350.

Or, if not the final decision, then one of the earlier letters of the controversy. 8 Dissert. Sel., p. 233.

"If Dr. Rivington is speaking of the larger portion of S. Cyprian's treatise and not of the whole of it, he is right in saying (Prim. Ch., p. 57), that the circumstances under which he wrote it "would not necessarily, nor even naturally, lead him to the subject of papal jurisdiction;" for, as Dr. Rivington truly observes, "It was the rights of bishops over the laity, and the test of a lawful occupant of any see, Rome included, which occupied his [Cyprian's] attention." It is for that very reason that Dr. Rivington must be held to misrepresent S. Cyprian's teaching, when (Prim. Ch., pp. 61, 62) he credits the holy martyr with the doctrine