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ESSAY IV

THE CYPRIANIC DOCTRINE OF

THE MINISTRY

JOHN HENRY BERNARD, D.D., D.C.L.

SUMMARY

I. The Church of Carthage; its origin and growth.

II. The witness of Tertullian to its organisation:
His distinction between layman and priest.
The threefold order of the ministry.

p. 217.

p. 221.

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V. The presbyteral office, at Carthage and at Rome :

The evolution of the presbyterate.

The presbyter as the bishop's delegate.

VI. The monarchical episcopate :

Independence of each bishop.
Councils of bishops.

VII. The treatise De unitate:

Its occasion.

Its argument.

Cyprian on the Roman see.

The interpolation in the De unitate.

The unity of the collective episcopate.

VIII. The Baptismal Controversy:

The minister of baptism.

p. 233.

P. 238.

p. 242.

p. 255.

Heretical baptism disavowed in the East.

The laxer practice of Rome.

Cyprian's arguments against validity of heretical baptism.

For him what is irregular is invalid.

His charity wider than his logic.

IX. Conclusion.

p. 262.

IV

THE CYPRIANIC DOCTRINE OF THE

MINISTRY

I

The beginnings of the church of Carthage are obscure, and the history of its developement before the middle of the third century depends upon inference rather than upon direct tradition. The secular history of the city tells us little that can help to determine the source from which its Christianity was derived, except in so far as its long connexion with Rome may suggest that it was thence that the Gospel came to proconsular Africa.

Some twenty years after the destruction of Carthage by Scipio in the second century before Christ, it was rebuilt by its conquerors, and an attempt was made to establish a Roman colony. This was not successful, and the revival of Roman favour may be said to begin with the reign of Augustus. In his day many Romans settled there, and it rapidly became a great metropolis, enjoying the patronage of successive emperors, Hadrian and the Antonines doing much to increase its prosperity. Latin became the official language, and the ancient Punic speech, which maintained itself in other cities in North Africa, was spoken by few, even of the lower classes, in Carthage. At the end of the second century, the language of the Carthaginian Christians was Latin, and of ecclesiastical Latin we have the earliest example in the writings of Tertullian.

persecution, it remains clear that the story of the martyrs of North Africa in the second and third centuries presupposes a vigorous Christian faith, widely held and well reasoned out. The well-known boast of Tertullian was grounded in fact: We are a people of yesterday, and yet we have filled every place belonging to you, cities, islands, outposts, towns, district-centres, your very camp, your tribes, the civil service, the palace, the senate, the forum. We have left you your temples only1.' This was written in the year 197. Fifteen years later, the same enthusiastic apologist declares that if all the Christians in Carthage are to be put to death, the population of the city will be decimated'; and he even goes so far as to claim, in another passage, that his fellow-believers almost form a majority in every city2.' Such statements breathe the spirit of the orator rather than of the historian, but they are sufficient to establish the vigour and vitality of the Christian communities for whom Tertullian was spokesman.

An independent testimony may be seen in the fact that at the First Council of Carthage, which was held between the years 213 and 220, no less than seventy bishops were assembled under the presidency of Agrippinus. We have here an indication, at the least, of a Christian Society of wide extent and sufficiently long established to possess a definite organisation.

1 'Hesterni sumus, et uestra omnia inpleuimus, urbes, insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa, tribus, decurias, palatium, senatum, forum; sola uobis reliquimus templa' (Apol. 37).

Ad Scapulam 5 and 2.

3 Aug. de unic. bapt. c. Petil. XIII 22; cf. Cypr. epp. LXXI 4, LXXIII 3.

It is argued by Leclercq in Cabrol's Dict. d'arch. chrét. II 2290 that the churches of North Africa were sufficiently organised by the year 180 to possess archives where books and official documents were preserved, because the proconsul asks the Scillitan Martyrs' Quae sunt res in capsa uestra?' to which they reply' Libri et epistulae Pauli.' This may be a just inference, but capsa might equally well mean a box which contained the personal possessions of the martyrs addressed.

II

What was the nature of this organisation? The allusions of Tertullian leave us in no doubt as to the answer. 'The Brethren' formed a body joined together in a common discipline as in a common faith1. They accepted the sacred Scriptures without reserve, and Tertullian for his part would not allow that to these Scriptures heretics' had any right of appeal. The Christian writings, he urges, belong to the Christian Society, and their true meaning and application cannot be discerned outside its borders 2.

The distinction between layman and priest (sacerdos) was fully recognised in this society. Tertullian is the first writer, so far as we know, who applies the term sacerdos to the Christian minister; but he uses the term without any explanation or apology, not deeming that it needed defence. Even in one of his Montanist treatises3, where he is arguing that laymen are no more free to contract second marriages than priests are, the distinction appears clearly. Everyone is aware, he says, that priests may not remarry. But we must remember that laymen, too, are priests (sacerdotes). The difference between Christian layman and Christian priest is not a difference of caste, but is due to the authority of the Christian Society itself, which has made the distinction. The laity are the plebs; the clergy are the ordo or senatorial order. If a layman were separated unavoidably from the organised society, he would have to act as a priest for himself. 'Where there is no bench of clergy, you present the offering 1 Apol. 39; cf. de pud. 11.

2 Praescr. 37.

3 De exhort. cast. 7, written about 203; cf. de monog. 11, 12.

• Differentiam inter ordinem et plebem constituit ecclesiae auctoritas et honor per ordinis consessum sanctificatus' (de exhort. cast. 7). The last clause seems to indicate that the dignity of the clergy was marked by the setting aside of special benches for them (see Lightfoot Philippians P. 254 [255]).

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