Back in April, I ordered, received and read
Casey J. Chalk’s book, The Obscurity of Scripture - Disputing Sola Scriptura
and the Protestant Notion of Biblical Perspicuity (Google Books preview HERE).[1]
The book is a solid contribution to the ongoing debate between
Catholics and Protestants over the issue of sola scriptura, and is one I
can in good conscience recommend to both sides; but, this post is going to
focus on a secondary issue that Chalk brings up in chapter 9—Cyprian’s
conflict with Pope Stephen of Rome concerning the validity of baptism by
heretics and schismatics. From Chalk’s pen we read:
In the first few decades of the third century AD, a controversy
arose in the North African church over the doctrine of Baptism. Some persons
who had been baptized by non-Catholic sects such as the Montanists or
Marcionites later asked to be received into the Catholic Church. A council in
Carthage in AD 230 decreed that those baptized in such sects were required to
be rebaptized before entering into full communion with the Catholic Church.
Cyprian, the famous Bishop of Carthage, defended this decision.
When news of the council and Cyprian’s defense of it reached Rome, its bishop,
Stephen, condemned the local synod as violating ancient and apostolic
practices. Cyprian responded by calling an extraordinary synod in AD 256 that
affirmed the earlier Carthage decision. In the minutes of the council, which
were written by Cyprian, we read: “None of us has set himself up as bishop of
bishops.” This was a direct attack on Stephen’s claim to authority. Cyprian
also referred to Stephen as “arrogant, inconsistent, self-contradictory,
ill-considered, and inept”; the Roman bishop’s views, the African bishop
charged, were “erroneous.”
Cyprian’s rejection of the authority of the Bishop of Rome was a
remarkable about-face. In his treatise The Unity of the Catholic Church,
written only a few years earlier in AD 251, Cyprian had written that Christ
founded a single chair, and He established by His own authority a
source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that
also which Peter was; but a primacy was given to Peter, whereby it is made
clear that there is but one Church and one chair. . . . If someone does not
hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith?
If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be
confident that he is in the Church? (Casey J. Chalk, The Obscurity of
Scripture, 2023, pp. 192, 193)
The primary issue between Cyprian and Stephen concerned their
disagreement over whether or not the baptisms performed by heretics and
schismatics were valid. Chalk, in the above quote, points to another issue this
disagreement brings to light—the authority of the bishop of Rome. Chalk
maintains, "Cyprian’s rejection of the authority of the Bishop of Rome was a
remarkable about-face." In support of this assessment Chalk then wrote:
In a revised, second edition of this document, published the same
year as Cyprian’s extraordinary synod disputing the preeminent authority of the
Roman bishop, all of the language extolling the chair of Peter, manifested in
Rome, is absent. Instead, Cyprian defended the authority of “the episcopate”
which is “one, of which each bishop holds his part within the undivided
structure.” In other words, Cyprian’s debate with Stephen led him to change his
mind about papal authority. (Casey J. Chalk, The Obscurity of Scripture,
2023, pp. 192, 193)
During my reading Chalk’s book, I could not recall reading any
other author who embraced the same view as he did concerning Cyprian’s apparent
reversal on the bishop of Rome’s unique position of authority in relation to
the other Catholic bishops; as such, upon finishing the book I began an in
depth study into Cyprian of Carthage, with a focus on his ecclesiology and the
role bishop of Rome in it.
It had been over three decades ago since I was last engaged in a
comprehensive study of Cyprian. In the early 90s I read all of Cyprian’s
writings contained in the volume five of American reprint of the Edinburgh
edition of The Ante-Nicene Fathers edited by Roberts and Donaldson and
translated by Ernest Wallis. I began my renewed study by pulling this volume
off of the shelf and rereading Wallis’ English translation of On the Unity
of the Church (pp. 421-429). Chapter 4, page 422 contains what Chalk termed
the “revised second edition” of Cyprian’s discussion of the Chair of Peter and
the Bishop of Rome. Wallis’ rendition reads as follows:
If any one consider and examine these things, there is no need for
lengthened discussion and arguments. There is easy proof for faith in a short
summary of the truth. The Lord speaks to Peter,[3] saying, "I say unto
thee, that thou art Peter ; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys
of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be
bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven." And again to the same He says, after His resurrection,
"Feed my sheep."[5] And although to all the apostles, after His
resurrection, He gives an equal power, and says, "As the Father hath sent
me, even so send I you : Receive ye the Holy Ghost : Whose soever sins ye
remit, they shall be remitted unto him ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they
shall be retained ;" yet, that He might set forth unity, He arranged by
His authority the origin of that unity, as beginning from one. Assuredly the rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter, endowed
with a like partnership both of honour and power ; but the beginning proceeds
from unity.[7] Which one Church, also, the Holy Spirit in the Song of Songs
designated in the person of our Lord, and says, "My dove, my spotless one,
is but one. She is the only one of her mother, elect of her that bare
her." Does he who does not hold this unity of the Church think that he
holds the faith ? Does he who strives against and resists the Church[9] trust
that he is in the Church... (Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church, ANF
5.422)
Contra Chalk’s view, Wallis presents the above as the first
edition of our text in question. In support of this position he writes the
following in footnotes 3, 5, 7 and 9:
3. [On the falsifying of the text by Romish editors, see
Elucidation II.
5. S John xxi. 15. [Here is interpolated] : "Upon him, being
one, He builds His Church, and commits His sheep to be fed."
7. [Here is interpolated]: "And the primacy is given to
Peter, that there might be shown one Church of Christ and one See; and they are
all shepherds, and the flock is one, which is fed by all the apostles with
unanimous consent." This passage, as well as the one a few lines before, is
beyond all question spurious.
9. [Here is interpolated] : "Who deserts the chair of Peter,
upon whom the Church is founded." This passage also is undoubtedly
spurious. [Ibid.]
The ‘Elucidation II’ he mentioned above begins with:
(Falsifying of the text, p. 422.)
Cyprian is often innocently quoted by Romanist controvertists
against the very principles of Cyprian himself, of his life and his writings.
This is due to the fact that they have in their hands vitiated and interpolated
copies. (Ibid. p. 558)
So, which view is the correct one: Chalk's or Wallis'?
My online research quickly revealed Wallis’ assessment that the
reading of Cyprian “often innocently quoted by Romanist controvertists” was an
interpolation by a later writer—not from Cyprian—has been rejected by the vast
majority of folk who have written on the topic in the 20th and 21st centuries. Interestingly enough, even one prominent anti-Catholic polemicist
(William Webster) has embraced the view that both versions were in fact written
by Cyprian. Note the following:
Historically there has been some
confusion on the interpretation of Cyprian’s teaching because there are two
versions of his treatise, On the Unity of the Church. In the first
Cyprian speaks of the chair of Peter in which he equates the true Church with
that chair. He states that there is only one Church and one chair and a primacy
given to Peter. In the second, the references to a Petrine primacy are softened
to give greater emphasis to the theme of unity and co–equality of bishops. Most
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars now agree that Cyprian is the author of
both versions. (William Webster, A Refutation of the Misrepresentations
of the Writings of William Webster and of the Church Fathers by Roman Catholic,
Stephen Ray, in His Book Upon This Rock – LINK.)
The first solid refutation of the
assessment that the ‘Petrine primary’ version was an interpolation by a later
writer that I am aware of was by the Benedictine patristic scholar Dom John
Chapman in his three academic articles published between 1902-1903 in the
French journal Revue Bénédictine,[2] and in his book, Studies On The Early
Papacy— chapter II, St. Cyprian on the Church (1928).[3]
Nine years after the publication of Chapman’s book an academic
monograph titled St. Cyprian's De Unitate: Chap. 4 in the Light of the
Manuscripts, authored by the Jesuit Patristic scholar Maurice Bévenot, was
published in the Analecta Gregoriana, Volume 11 (1937). I have not been
able to obtain of copy of the book, but Massey H. Shepherd Jr. has provided a
concise summary/review that was published in the Church History journal
(LINK). From the review we read:
Fr. Bévenot's researches throw the weight of probability definitely to
the Cyprianic authorship of both the "primacy" text (or alternative,
not interpolated version) and the textus receptus as given in Hartel.
Though he has not dealt in detail with the question of the relative dates of
the two versions, he sides with van den Eynde's theory that the primacy (or
alternative) text is the earlier, for which the textus receptus version
was a substitute made by Cyprian at the time of his controversy with Pope
Stephen over the rebaptism of heretics. (Page 375)
Subsequent to his above monograph, Bévenot had three more
Cyprianic books published:
Maurice Bévenot, St. Cyprian ‘‘The Lapsed’’ and ‘‘’The Unity of the
Catholic Church’ (Ancient Christian Writers, Vol. 25, 1957) [LINK]
In this work, Bévenot provides his English translations for two
important treatises from the corpus of Cyprian, including both of the variants
for chapter four of The Unity of the Catholic Church. His introduction
is excellent and his copious notes are invaluable.
Maurice Bévenot, The Tradition of Manuscripts, A Study in the
Transmission of St. Cyprian's Treatises (Oxford 1961) [LINK]
The book is an exhaustive expansion of his previous monograph, St.
Cyprian's De Unitate: Chap. 4 in the Light of the Manuscripts. It is
available online for reading at no cost.
Maurice Bévenot, Cyprian De Lapsis and De Ecclesiae Catholicae
Unitate (Oxford Early Christian Texts, 1971) [LINK]
In this tome Bévenot provides his English "translation[s]
of the treatises in Ancient Christian Writers 25 (here slightly
revised), which is reprinted with the permission of Paulist/Newman Press, New
York, N.Y.", and includes updated critical Latin texts for both treatises
based on the extensive research he has done into the extant manuscripts.
In 1967, the first edition of the New Catholic Encyclopedia was
published; volume 4 contains the entry ‘St. Cyprian’ (pp. 457-460) that was
written by Bévenot. The second edition of volume 4 is available online for
reading and/or downloading at no cost. (LINK)
Having diligently read through Bévenot’s above referenced works, I
was able to answer for myself the question I asked earlier in this post: which
view is the correct one; Chalk’s or Wallis’? I can confidently say
that it is Chalk’s—the textual variant of chapter 4 in Cyprian’s The Unity of the Catholic Church termed by scholars as the ‘Primacy Text’ was not a later
interpolation by an unknown author, but rather, it was the first version penned
by Cyprian himself which he later changed (termed the ‘Textus Receptus Text’)
after his disagreement with Pope Stephen over the issue of rebaptism.
Grace and peace,
David
Notes:
1. For an excellent summation of the book see THIS POST by the author
published at Called to Communion. See
also Chapman’s ‘St. Cyprian of Carthage’ entry in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol.
IV, pp, 583-589. (LINK)
2. Revue Bénédictine, Volume 19, Issue 1-4, Jan 1902, p. 246 - 254 (LINK)
Revue Bénédictine, Volume 19, Issue 1-4, Jan 1902, p. 357 - 373 (LINK)
Revue Bénédictine, Volume 20, Issue 1-4, Jan 1903, p. 26 - 51 (LINK)
3. John Chapman, Studies on the Early Papacy, 1928 (LINK)
