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Cyprian's Early Career in the Church of Carthage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2018

MATTIAS GASSMAN
MATTIAS GASSMAN*
Affiliation:
Queens' College, Cambridge CB3 9ET; e-mail: mattias.gassman@gmail.com
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Abstract

Cyprian's baptism is usually placed in 245–6, two to four years before he became bishop. The early treatise Ad Donatum is thus taken as a witness to the neophyte's spiritual ‘transition’. This article challenges this common biographical narrative. A date just before Cyprian's ordination in 248/9 fits the evidence better than 246. As comparison with Ad Quirinum suggests, the winsome portrait of Cyprian the true convert that Ad Donatum paints might have done more than exhort neophytes to zealous spirituality: it may also have been meant to silence the presbyters whom Pontius’ Vita and Cyprian himself portray as critics of his ordination.

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Research Article
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 1 - 17
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

CCSL = Corpus Christianorum Series Latina; PL = Patrologia Latina; SC = Sources Chrétiennes

I would like to thank Neil McLynn, Edwina Murphy, Christopher Kelly, Oliver Nicholson and the anonymous readers appointed by this Journal for their advice. Any errors remain, of course, my own.

References

1 On which see Rives, James B., ‘The decree of Decius and the religion of empire’, Journal of Roman Studies lxxxix (1999), 135–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 A comprehensive study is provided in Burns, J. Patout, Cyprian the bishop, London 2002CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An alternative view is offered by Brent, Alan in Cyprian and Roman Carthage, Cambridge 2010Google Scholar.

3 The best biography of Cyprian remains Sage, Michael M., Cyprian, Cambridge, Ma 1975Google Scholar.

4 The date of Cyprian's ordination is fixed by ep. lix.6.1 (‘plebi suae in episcopatu quadriennio iam probatus’), which dates sometime after 15 May 252: Sage, Cyprian, 138.

5 See Sage, Cyprian, 365–72, 377–83, and G. W. Clarke's chronological table in CCSL, 3D. 706–9.

6 Jerome, De viris illustribus 68. On this text see Ziegler, Mario, ‘Die Vita et passio Cypriani: Aussageabsicht und historischer Hintergrund’, Klio xci (2009), 458–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Dessau, Hermann, ‘Pontius, der Biograph Cyprians’, Hermes li (1916), 65–72Google Scholar.

7 Passio sanctorum Montani et Lucii 11.2 (a letter from the martyrs that quotes Cyprian, De dominica oratione 36 immediately after, at 11.6; cf. Dolbeau, François, ‘La Passion des saints Lucius et Montanus: histoire et édition du texte’, Revue d'études augustiniennes et patristiques xxix [1983], 39–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 74 nn. 30–1).

8 Vita Cypriani 2, 4. Pontius refers only to Cyprian's pursuit of ‘studia et bonae artes’ (2.2) as a pagan, but other sources, including Jerome and Lactantius (see n. 10 below), make it clear that he had been a teacher or practitioner of rhetoric. See further Clarke, G. W., ‘The secular profession of St Cyprian of Carthage’, Latomus xxiv (1965), 633–8Google Scholar, and Sage, Cyprian, 95–132.

9 ‘iudicio Dei et plebis fauore ad officium sacerdotii et episcopatus gradum adhuc neophytus et ut putabatur nouellus electus est’: Pontius, Vita Cypriani 5.1, with Charles A. Bobertz, ‘Cyprian of Carthage as patron: a social historical study of the role of bishop in the ancient Christian community of North Africa’, unpubl. PhD diss. Yale 1988, 119–29.

10 Lactantius, Diuinae institutiones v.2.24; Jerome, De viris illustribus 53, 67–8; Chronicon 257 post Christum; and In Ionam 3.6–9.

11 So Sage, Cyprian, 131, following, with some hesitation, Benson, Edward White, Cyprian: his life, his times, his work, London 1897, 13Google Scholar; Tertullian, De baptismo 19.

12 ‘L’Ad Donatum è l'opera che sgorga spontanea dal cuore di un ardente convertito dopo il baptismo’: Quacquarelli, Antonio, La retorica antica al bivio (L'Ad Nigrinum e l'Ad Donatum), Rome 1956Google Scholar, 131. Similar (if less florid) characterisations appear in, for example, Molager, Jean, Cyprien de Carthage: A Donat et La Vertu de patience, Paris 1982Google Scholar, SC ccxci. 30, and de Labriolle, Pierre, Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne, 3rd edn revised and expanded by Gustave Bardy, Paris 1947Google Scholar, i.227. For a more sober characterisation see Wiles, M. F., ‘The theological legacy of St Cyprian’, this Journal xiv (1963), 139–49Google Scholar at pp. 140–1.

13 There are particularly sophisticated statements of this view in Molager, Cyprien, 37–46, and Fontaine, Jacques, Aspects et problèmes de la prose d'art latine au IIIe siècle: la genèse des styles latins chrétiens, Turin 1968, 149–76Google Scholar.

14 For Ad Donatum as an ‘apology’, see, for example, Clarke, ‘Secular profession’, 633, and Sage, Cyprian, 128; cf. also Engberg, Jakob, ‘The education and (self-)affirmation of (recent or potential) converts: the case of Cyprian and the Ad Donatum’, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum xvi (2012), 129–44Google Scholar at p. 143. Engberg takes Ad Donatum as Cyprian's attempt to describe and explain his conversion to himself, Donatus, and ‘other readers who where [sic] either recent or potential converts’.

15 ‘Annales Cyprianici, sive Tredecim Annorum, quibus S. Cyprianus inter Christianos versatus est, brevis historia Chronologice delineata’, in Sancti Cæcilii Cypriani opera recognita et illustrata, ed. John Fell, Oxford 1682 (Wing C.7711), 1–71 at pp. 6–9.

16 Ibid. 7.

17 Particularly influential examples include ‘Vita Sancti Cypriani nunc primum adornata’, in Sancti Cæcilii Cypriani episcopi Carthaginensis et martyris opera, ed. Étienne Baluze and [Prudent Maran], Venice 1728, cols vii–viii (the core of PL iv), and Adolf Harnack, Die Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius, Leipzig 1897–1904, ii/2, 368.

18 Among recent authors see, for example, Haykin, Michael A. G., ‘The Holy Spirit in Cyprian's To Donatus’, Evangelical Quarterly lxxxiii (2011), 321–9Google Scholar at p. 322; Wilhite, David E., ‘Cyprian's scriptural hermeneutic of identity: the Laxist “heresy”’, Horizons in Biblical Theology xxxiv (2010), 58–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 65 n. 26; Fredouille, Jean-Claude, ‘L'Humanité vue d'en haut (Cyprien, Ad Donatum, 6–13)’, Vigiliae Christianae lxiv (2010), 445–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 445; Engberg, ‘Education’, 134; Hunink, Vincent, ‘St Cyprian, a Christian and a Roman gentleman’, in Bakker, Henk, van Geest, Paul and van Loon, Hans (eds), Cyprian of Carthage: studies in his life, language and thought, Leuven 2010, 29–41Google Scholar at p. 35; Brent, Cyprian, 44; Veronese, Maria, ‘In proprias laudes odiosa iactatio (Cypr., Don. 4): l'accezione cristiana di una sentenza classica’, in Interpretare e comunicare: tradizioni di scuola nella letteratura latina tra III e VI secolo, Bari 2007, 181–9Google Scholar at p. 182; and Burns, Cyprian the bishop, 1. See also Molager's influential commentary, Cyprien, at p. 12, and Sage's biography, Cyprian, at pp. 118, 130–1 n. 1.

19 Dunn, Geoffrey D., ‘The white crown of works: Cyprian's early pastoral ministry of almsgiving in Carthage’, Church History lxxiii (2004), 715–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 722 n. 28.

20 Cf., for example, Colombo, Sisto, ‘S. Cipriano di Cartagine: l'uomo e lo scrittore’, Didaskaleion vi (1928), 1–80Google Scholar at p. 13, who argues for baptism in 247, and Quacquarelli, La retorica, 121, who suggests 248/9.

21 Sage, Cyprian, 135–6; cf. Harnack, Chronologie, 368, but contrast Benson, Cyprian, 17–19.

22 Bobertz, ‘Cyprian as patron’, 93–119, esp. pp. 109–13.

23 ‘Multa sunt quae adhuc plebeius, multa quae iam presbyter fecerit’: Vita Cypriani 3.4.

24 Pace Bobertz, Cyprian, 118 n. 72; ‘Cyprianus primum rhetor, deinde presbyter, ad extremum Carthaginiensis episcopus martyrio coronatur’: Jerome, Chronicon 257 post Christum (cf. De uiris illustribus 67).

25 Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii 9.1.3.

26 The letters of St Cyprian of Carthage, ed. G. W. Clarke, New York 1984, i. 127–8 n. 78.

27 Dunn, ‘White crown’, 725–6.

28 ‘Une telle oeuvre mérite le nom d'oeuvre de transition’: Fontaine, Aspects, 159.

29 Watson, E. W., ‘The style and language of St Cyprian’, Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica iv (1896), 189–324Google Scholar at pp. 199–200.

30 Winterbottom, Michael, ‘Cyprian's Ad Donatum’, in Swain, Simon, Harrison, Stephen and Elsner, Jaś (eds), Severan culture, Cambridge 2007, 190–8Google Scholar.

31 The case is made at greater length in Gassman, Mattias, ‘The conversion of Cyprian's rhetoric? Towards a new reading of Ad Donatum’, Studia Patristica xciv (2017), 247–57Google Scholar.

32 Watson, ‘Style’, 200.

33 Ibid. 200 n. 1; cf. Pontius, Vita Cypriani 7, the fourth-century Cheltenham list of Cyprian's works (Mommsen, Th., ‘Zur lateinischen Stichometrie’, Hermes xxi [1886], 142–56Google Scholar), and the discussion of the manuscripts in von Soden, Hans Freiherr, Die Cyprianische Briefsammlung: Geschichte ihrer Entstehung und Überlieferung, Leipzig 1904, 198–203Google Scholar.

34 Ad Donatum 1, 6, 14.

35 ‘si enim Christianus a furore et contentione carnali tamquam de maris turbinibus excessit et tranquillus ac lenis in portu Christi esse iam coepit … in istis fluctuantis mundi turbinibus et Iudaeorum siue gentilium et haereticorum quoque persecutionibus constituti’: De bono patientiae 16, 21. For the date cf. ep. lxxiii.26.2, which was written during the rebaptism controversy and mentions De bono patientiae as a recent work; Molager suggests ‘la première moitié de l'anneé 256, ou très peu de temps auparavant’: Cyprien, 135.

36 See, for example, epp. xxxiii.1, xli.2, xliii.2, xix.6. The pseudo-Cyprianic De aleatoribus 1–3 offers a striking counterpoint to Cyprian's regular practice in his treatises.

37 Sage, Cyprian, 365–6, 380–1.

38 ‘fratres quoque et maxime sacerdotes non oderunt sed diligunt eos quos corripiunt ut emendent … audite itaque uirgines, ut parentem: audite quaeso uos timentem pariter ac monentem’: De habitu uirginum 1, 21. ‘Sacerdos’ means ‘bishop’ in Cyprian: Bévenot, Maurice, ‘“Sacerdos” as understood by Cyprian’, JTS n.s. xxx (1979), 413–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Ad Fortunatum, praef. 2–5.

40 Ad Donatum 15.

41 ‘de imperitis gentibus ueniens tam matura fide coepit, quanta pauci fortasse perfecerint’: Vita Cypriani 3.3.

42 So, most recently, Heck, Eberhard, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian, Quod idola dii non sint und Lactanz, Epitome Divinarum Institutionum’, in Wacht, Manfred (ed.), Panchaia: Festschrift für Klaus Thraede, Münster 1995, 148–55Google Scholar. The defence of the work's authenticity by Hans Van Loon is not convincing: ‘Cyprian's Christology and the authenticity of Quod idola dii non sint’, in Bakker, van Geest and van Loon, Cyprian of Carthage, 127–42.

43 Heck, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, 155; Diuinae institutiones v.1.24–8, 4.

44 Murphy, Edwina, ‘“As far as my poor memory suggested”: Cyprian's compilation of Ad Quirinum’, Vigiliae Christianae lxviii (2014), 533–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Noormann, Rolf, Ad salutem consulere: die Paränese Cyprians im Kontext antiken und frühchristlichen Denkens, Göttingen 2009, 41–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar (with summary of earlier opinions); cf. also Deléani, Simone, ‘Quelques Observations sur la syntaxe des titres dans les florilèges scripturaires de saint Cyprien’, Studia Patristica xxxi (1995), 281–6Google Scholar, and Sage, Cyprian, 395–7. Even R. P. C. Hanson and Charles Bobertz, who contend that Ad Quirinum was based on one or more earlier florilegia, concede that Cyprian produced the compendium as we have it: Tradition in the Early Church, London 1962, 261–4; ‘An analysis of Vita Cypriani 3.6–10 and the attribution of Ad Quirinum to Cyprian of Carthage’, Vigiliae Christianae xlvi (1992), 112–28 at p. 125 n. 20.

45 For an attempt to discern an order in Ad Quirinum iii see Alexis-Baker, Andy, ‘Ad Quirinum book three and Cyprian's catechumenate’, Journal of Early Christian Studies xvii (2009), 357–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 For example, Sage, Cyprian, 382–3.

47 ‘quibus non tam tractasse quam tractantibus materiam praebuisse uideamur’: Ad Quirinum i, praef.

48 ‘Un ami plus jeune’: Deléani, Simone, ‘Les Formules épistolaires dans la Correspondance de saint Cyprien: tradition et nouveauté’, in Laurence, Patrick and Guillaumont, François (eds), Epistulae antiquae IV: actes du IVe colloque international ‘L'épistolaire antique et ses prolongements européens’ (Université François-Rabelais, Tours, 1er-2–3 décembre 2004), Leuven 2006, 195–207Google Scholar at pp. 199–200. A range of possible interpretations is canvassed in Letters of St Cyprian, i. 163 n. 13, with previous scholarship.

49 So, for example, Benson, Cyprian, 22–4.

50 For the biblical passages cf. Haussleiter, Johannes, ‘Cyprian-Studien’, in Commentationes Woelfflinianae, Leipzig 1891, 377–89Google Scholar.

51 ‘Sit tibi uel oratio adsidua uel lectio. Nunc cum Deo loquere, nunc Deus tecum. Ille te praeceptis suis instruat, ille disponat’: Ad Donatum 15.

52 So, for example, Ferguson, Everett, ‘Catechesis and initiation’, in Kreider, Alan (ed.), The origins of Christendom in the West, Edinburgh 2001, 229–68Google Scholar at pp. 240–2, and Alexis-Baker, ‘Ad Quirinum’; cf. the more cautious comments of Quacquarelli, Antonio, ‘Note retoriche sui Testimonia di Cipriano’, Vetera Christianorum viii (1971), 181–209Google Scholar at p. 204.

53 ‘Obtemperandum fuit, fili carissime, desiderio tuo … diuina magisteria poscenti, quibus nos Dominus per scripturas sanctas erudire et instruere dignatus est, ut a tenebris erroris abducti et luce eius pura et candida luminati uiam uitae per salutaria sacramenta teneamus’: Ad Quirinum i, praef.

54 ‘Ego cum in tenebris atque in nocte caeca iacerem … ueritatis ac lucis alienus … difficile prorsus ac durum pro illis tunc moribus opinabar … ut quis renasci denuo posset utque in nouam uitam lauacro aquae salutaris animatus, quod prius fuerat, exponeret’: Ad Donatum 3; ‘sed postquam undae genitalis auxilio … in expiatum pectus ac purum desuper se lumen infudit’: Ad Donatum 3–4.

55 ‘Ceterum si tu innocentiae, si iustitiae uiam teneas inlapsa firmitate uestigii tui’: ibid. 5.

56 ‘quae legenti tibi interim prosunt ad prima fidei liniamenta formanda. Plus roboris tibi dabitur et magis ac magis intellectus cordis operabitur scrutanti scripturas ueteres ac nouas plenius … Bibere uberius et saturari copiosius poteris, si tu quoque ad eosdem diuinae plenitudinis fontes nobiscum pariter poturus accesseris’: Ad Quirinum i, praef.

57 Compare Ad Quirinium i, praef. (‘quantum mediocris memoria suggerebat, excerptis capitulis et adnexis necessaria quaeque colligerem’), to Ad Donatum 2 (‘Ceterum quale uel quantum est, quod in pectus tuum ueniat ex nobis, exilis ingenii angusta mediocritas tenues admodum fruges parit’), Ad Quirinium iii, praef., and Ad Fortunatum, praef. 1. For further examples see Watson, ‘Style’, 273.

58 ‘Ego cum in tenebris atque in nocte caeca iacerem cumque in salo iactantis saeculi nutabundus ac dubius uestigiis oberrantibus fluctuarem uitae meae nescius, ueritatis ac lucis alienus’: Ad Donatum 3.

59 ‘Scis profecto et mecum pariter recognoscis, quid detraxerit nobis quidue contulerit mors ista criminum, uita uirtutum. Scis ipse, nec praedico. In proprias laudes odiosa iactatio est’: ibid. 4.

60 ‘Dominus influxit’: ibid.

61 ‘lucem tibi ad cognitionem dabo, malorum caligine abstersa operti saeculi tenebras reuelabo’: ibid. 6.

62 ‘confirmare se dubia, patere clausa, lucere tenebrosa’: ibid. 4.

63 ‘de Domino, de Deo’: ibid. 2.

64 Cf. T. L. Bryan, ‘Spirituality and authority in Cyprian of Carthage’, unpubl. ThD diss. Iliff School of Theology 1983, 59.

65 ‘Tu tantum, quem iam spiritalibus castris caelestis militia signauit, tene incorruptam, tene sobriam religiosis uirtutibus disciplinam’: Ad Donatum 15.

66 Cf. n. 14, above.

67 Pontius, Vita Cypriani 5.6.

68 ‘Hoc enim quorundam presbyterorum malignitas et perfidia perfecit … dum coniurationis suae memores et antiqua illa contra episcopatum meum immo contra suffragium uestrum et dei iudicium, uenena retinentes instaurant ueterem contra nos inpugnationem suam … Et quidem de dei prouidentia nobis hoc nec uolentibus nec optantibus … poenas quas meruerant pependerunt, ut a nobis non eiecti ultro se eicerent … secundum uestra diuina suffragia coniurati et scelerati de ecclesia sponte se pellerent’: ep. xliii.1.2–3; for commentary see Letters of St Cyprian, iii. 215–16.

69 Connections: Pontius, Vita Cypriani 14.3; wealth: 2.7, 5.3–4, with Bobertz, ‘Cyprian’, 121–2.

70 ‘coniurationis suae’: ep. xliii.1.2.

71 Outside of the Cyprianic corpus itself, no ancient author cites a genuine work of Cyprian that does not survive to the present: Harnack, Adolf, Über verlorene Briefe und Actenstücke die sich aus der Cyprianischen Briefsammlung ermitteln lassen, Leipzig 1902, 43–4Google Scholar.

72 Cf. Saxer, Victor, ‘Reflets de la culture des évêques africains dans l’œuvre de saint Cyprien’, Revue Bénédictine xciv (1984), 257–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with further comments in Montgomery, Hugo, ‘Saint Cyprian's secular heritage’, in Damsgaard-Madsen, Aksel, Christiansen, Erik and Hallager, Erik (eds), Studies in ancient history and numismatics presented to Rudi Thomsen, Aarhus 1988, 214–23Google Scholar at p. 218.

73 Vita Cypriani 5.2.

74 Sage, Cyprian, 128.

75 Cyprian refers to the writing and transmission of De bono patientiae at ep. lxxiii.26.2 and of De lapsis and De ecclesiae catholicae unitate at ep. liv.4, but there is a lack of explicit evidence regarding Ad Donatum.