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)
16 comments:
Hi David.
It seems like you offer a compelling case that Cyprian simply wrote a De Unitate, 2nd edition. I see nothing nefarious about that. I am in possession of books where authors have clarified and/or corrected what they later perceived to be errors in an earlier edition. Any author has a right to do that. I lean strongly toward the idea that this is what happened.
Cyprian was widely respected and it seems difficult to imagine how conspirators supporting the Petrine monarchy were able to successfully make a forgery after an original that drew a line in the sand that was exactly to opposite of what the original said. How could they think it would be practical to try to rid the world of a manuscript that was already copied and reproduced in the Church?
I think it is harmful enough for Catholics to have to admit that "St. Cyprian" denied that the Roman bishops are successors of St. Peter, and hold a unique position on the Church's hierarchy. It is not necessary to pile on further with some conspiracy theory about how those dishonest papists deliberately forged a document purporting to be the original.
I am Catholic and almost 1800 years later, my faith doesn't depend on a holy North African bishop, martyred for the faith, who also developed a different approach to ecclesial authority because of his convictions about the invalidity of baptisms performed by heretics and those who denied the faith while being threatened by imperial authorities.
For sake of maybe adding some needed fuel to a discussion that I would enjoy on this subject, I have slightly different questions for you David, and your readers:
1) Given doctrinal development as it appears to have advanced in regards to the papacy and to valid baptisms, would you have sided with Pope Stephen in the mid 3rd Century or with St. Cyprian?
2) Would your answer change if you were to answer with all that we can know today?
I freely admit that in the 3rd Century, I don't know what I might have decided. Cyprian's view of the controversy regarding valid baptism never gained much traction in subsequent times. By the middle ages the popes were saying that anyone could baptize if they used the right form and matter.
From our perspective today, it is easier to see that Pope Stephen's foresight in affirming that one does not need to doubt the efficacy of one's baptism becomes doubtful if it should be discovered that the person who baptized you is alleged to be a notorious sinner or heretic. This leads to the comforting conclusion that sacramental validity does not depend on the holiness or doctrinal correctness of the minister.
Hi Rory, thanks much for your thoughtful post; towards the end, you asked two questions. As for the first, I tend towards the conservative side of when two differing arguments are presented. Cyprian believed that heretics and schismatics had lost the authority (i.e. the keys that Jesus Christ gave to His Church) to administer the sacraments. With this in mind, along with the fact that the Bishop of Rome had been opposed in the past when some of their actions and or doctrinal assessments were thought to be in error (e.g. Paul, Irenaeus, and Tertullian), I probably would have sided with Cyprian.
As to your second question, I don't know for sure. The Catholic Church currently does not accept the baptisms of at least two sects that baptize in 'the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit'--Jehovah's Witnesses and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This complicates the issue for me. Do you think I may have over thought the issue/s at hand?
Grace and peace,
David
But, then, Bévenot actually contradicts Chalk when he argues, “If he altered the text of chapter 4 . . . , this will have been NOT because he had changed his mind about the Papacy, but because Rome was reading more into it than he had intended. . . . If in the course of the baptismal controversy this was, as it were, thrown in his teeth, he would have exclaimed, quite truthfully: ‘But I never meant THAT!’—and so he ‘toned it down’ in his revised version. He did not, then, repudiate what he had formerly held. He had never held that the Pope possessed universal jurisdiction.” (Maurice Bévenot, Ancient Christian Writers 25:7)
And I found this to be the majority position of modern patristic scholars. Again:
“Clearly Cyprian’s theology of the Church seems to render unnecessary a pope of Rome as the guarantor of the unity of the Church. Cyprian views church unity as arising from a consensus on doctrine and discipline among each of the geographically located bishops throughout the Roman world. . . .
“Furthermore Peter’s Chair is the chair of any bishop in any diocese and not exclusively at Rome. . . .
“Cyprian, far from giving special deference to Cornelius after deciding the disputed election and consecration in his favor, criticizes him as his equal.” (Allen Brent, Popular Patristics 32:38-39)
And yet again:
“The two churches might have continued to live in harmony with different customs, as in the past. This was not possible, however, since Stephen believed it his duty to bring the African bishops around to his point of view. When Cyprian became aware that the bishop of Rome was intervening in the affairs of the African churches, he felt it a blow to his authority. But there was more: Stephen seemed to have interpreted the primacy of Rome, expressed in ch. 4 of Cyprian’s De unitate, too widely. . . . the baptismal controversy between Stephen and Cyprian certainly shows that they enjoyed equal moral authority in the eyes of their contemporaries.” (Victor Saxer, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 1:647)
Hi Errol,
So good to hear from you again. Thanks much for taking the time to comment and sharing the quotes from Bévenot, Brent and Saxer.
The focus on my opening post concerned the issue of whether or not the so-called variant in chapter 4 was written by Cyprian himself or was an interpolation by a later author. Bévenot, Brent and Saxer all agree with Chalk that is was Cyprian, and this contra so many other earlier writers such as Wallis.
With said, Bévenot, Brent* and Saxer disagree with Chalk concerning Cyprian’s understanding of the Bishop of Rome’s relationship with all the other ‘catholic/orthodox’ bishops—i.e. did Cyprian’s view remain the same or was there a change after his conflict with Stephen. Bévenot, Brent* and Saxer say no, whilst Chalk says yes. Chalk is certainly not alone in his assessment; John Chapman, Bryan Cross, and Stephen Ray immediately come to mind. Which take on this issue is the correct one?
Cyprian in one of his letters to bishop Cornelius of Rome—number 54 in Wallis’, but 59 in most collections—written before his disagreement with bishop Stephen of Rome sure seems to lend support to Chalk’s view. Note the following:
Epistle 54/59
post ista adhuc insuper pseudoepiscopo sibi ab haereticis constituto nauigare audent et ad Petri cathedram adque ad ecclesiam principalem unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est ab schismaticis et profanis litteras ferre nec cogitare eos esse Bomanos quorum fides apostolo praedicante laudata est, ad quos perfidia habere non possit accessum. (CORPVS SCRIPTORVM ECCLESIASTICORVM LATINORVM, VOL. III. PARS II., Thasci Caecilii Cypriani, Epistulae LVIIII c.14, p. 683)
After such things as these, moreover, they still dare—a false bishop having been appointed for them by heretics—to set sail and to bear letters from schismatic and profane persons to the throne of Peter, and to the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source ; and not to consider that these were the Romans whose faith was praised in the preaching of the apostle, to whom faithlessness could have no access. (Ernst Wallis, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1886, Vol. 5, Epistle 54.14, p. 344)
After all this, they yet, in addition, having had a pseudo-Bishop ordained for them by heretics, dare to set sail, and to carry letters from schismatic and profane persons to the chair of Peter, and to the principal Church, whence the unity of the priesthood' took its rise, remembering not that they are the same Romans, whose faith has been commended by the Apostle, to whom faithlessness can have no access. (H. Carey, A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, 1844, Vol. 17, Epistle 59.18, pp. 164, 165)
After these things, with a false bishop appointed for themselves by the heretics, they dare to sail and to bring letters from the heretics and blasphemers to the Chair of Peter and to the principal Church whence sacerdotal unity has sprung, and not to think that those are the Romans whose faith was praised by the Apostle preaching; to them perfidy cannot have access. (Cyprian, St. Cyprian Letters (1-81), trans. Rose Bernard Donna, The Fathers of the Church, 1964, Vol. 51, p. 186)
Subsequently thereafter they accepted over them a pseudo bishop ordained by heretics. Then they had the audacity even to set sail to the Chair of St Peter and to deliver letters from schismatics and men outside our sanctuary to the primordial Church from whose source has arisen the united body of the sacred bishops.'[12]
12 ". . . . the primordial Church (ad ecclesiam principalem) from whose source has arisen the united body of the sacred bishops (unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est a schismaticis)" Here Cyprian clearly has a higher view of the papacy (to which one ms reading of his work refers, namely the Received Text of Unit. eccl. 4-5) than that maintained later, in his controversy with Stephen of Rome. (Allen Brent, St Cyprian of Carthage, On the Church - Select Letters, 2006, page 161)
cont'd
cont'd
Notice what Brent says in note 12: “Here Cyprian clearly has a higher view of the papacy (to which one ms reading of his work refers, namely the Received Text of Unit. eccl. 4-5) than that maintained later, in his controversy with Stephen of Rome.”
This is why I placed an asterisk* with his name earlier in this post. I fully concur with Brent’s above assessment that Cyprian had a change in “his view of the papacy”. That is Chalk’s, Cross’, and Ray’s view too.
Grace and peace,
David
Greetings David,
I haven't read any modern patristic scholars who've taken up Ernest Wallis' position on the matter and thus I think it can safely be said that it's obsolete. And while John Chapman was also a legitimate patristic scholar he was a contemporary of Wallis whose work on the subject was published in 1928; not exactly the golden age of patristics which followed the World Wars and Great Depression. Casey Chalk and Bryan R. Cross, while more modern, don't exactly have the relevant credentials to put them on the level with the above or with the patristic scholars I've cited, and that combined with the fact that they're approach is largely one of apologetics as per their affiliations with Catholic Answers and Called to Communion, respectively, causes great trepidation on my part as I learned the hard way when I informally debated this subject with Roman Catholic lay apologist Erick Ybarra several years ago; potential for personal bias being substantial.
Regarding the additional citation you furnished, allow me to bring another modern, world-class Cyprianic expert to the table commenting on the portion of Letter 59 which you cited:
“Cyprian is here not phrasing some dogmatic theory, much less thinking of Rome's jurisdictional authority; he is writings a skillful blend of indignant expostulation and knowing flattery. This is talk which at once expresses Cyprian's genuine respect for the great traditions of the great see of Rome—and which Cornelius of Rome would much like to hear.
“Much ink has flowed to make the text say more (or less) than it intends, and I do not propose to add to the flood.” (Graeme W. Clarke, Ancient Christian Writers 46:258)
If I understand Brent correctly the, "higher view of the papacy," which he had held and would subsequently, "modify his view of Roman primacy in the light of his dispute with Pope Stephen," was the idea that the twin pillars of orthodox unity—Rome and Carthage—would ever be reduced to threatening excommunication against one another; a sad reality which he was quite nonplused to find himself facing. After all, in the same letter he immediately went on to state, “To each individual of the shepherds a share of the flock has been assigned, which each one rules and governs in the light of the account of his actions that he will deliver to the Lord.” (Letters 59:14:2, in Popular Patristics 33:161) And hence, in the citation of Brent which you furnished, his going on to note that, "The bishop of Rome becomes the center of the web of intercommunion formed by the mutual recognition of bishops throughout the world. Note in section 2 that follows, Cyprian will nevertheless claim the right to judge himself what has been committed 'in the share of the flock assigned' to him in Africa." And thus I don't see Brent's position as being particularly complementary to Chalk's assertion that Cyprian did, "a remarkable about-face."
Hi Mr. Amey,
With David, I am glad you have arrived so that we can possibly sort out some of the controversy that surrounds Cyprian's alleged developments of thought about the papacy or his continual consistency in that regard.
I am certainly no scholar, and worse, I am one of those Catholics who is substantially biased! But I think I may have noted a problem with an argument you offered as possibly nullifying words of Cyprian in his Letter #59. You suggest that Cyprian is being less than straight-forward when he seems to be affirming that priestly unity springs from the chair of Peter. David cited Cyprian's letter above in several English translations which seems to point to a higher view of the papacy than that expressed in a later volume of Cyprian's on the Unity of the Church. You offered as a possible reason for why we should not place confidence in the quote from David is that Cyprian was possibly exercising a little stretch of the truth by flattery.
Whatever the cause for Cyprian's words quoted by David, you offer as evidence a different Cyprianic statement, from the same letter #59 wherein he says, "To each individual of the shepherds a share of the flock has been assigned, which each one rules and governs in the light of the account of his actions that he will deliver to the Lord.”
The problem with the quote you cited is that it is perfectly complementary to Catholic Tradition, and especially complementary to the quote David provided which affirms the Chair of Peter as
the source from which priestly unity arises in the universal church. I understand that this would be a higher view of the papacy than is expressed by Cyprian after his disagreement with Pope Stephen over baptism.
---to be continued
The problem I see with the quote you cited from #59 is that it is complementary to Catholic Tradition in regards to the episcopate. There is nothing about it that denies the Chair of Peter as
the source from which priestly unity arises in the universal church. I understand that this would be a higher view of the papacy than is expressed by Cyprian after his disagreement with Pope Stephen over baptism.
I fear you are seeing a contradiction where none exists. A high view of the papacy is compatible and necessary with a high view of the episcopate in Catholic Tradition. We need not choose between pope and bishops. It is both. What you provide showing a high degree of excellence and authority of the bishop in his own territory is matched by what appears to me to be even a stronger confirmation of the authority of the local bishop found in more recent teachings where the Church definitively teaches that by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the bishops receive their authority directly from Christ and not as a mere extension of the authority given to successor of Peter.
I respect your obviously superior familiarity with patristic texts to mine. But I do think it is possible that you are placing too much weight upon Cyprian's high view of his own episcopal authority. For your consideration are some teachings from the universal Catechism (CCC) promulgated by Pope John Paul II. The following is a direct translation from the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, speaking of the episcopal authority.
CCC #894 "'The bishops, as vicars and legates of Christ, govern the particular Churches assigned to them by their counsels, exhortations, and example, but over and above all that also by the authority and sacred power' which indeed they ought to exercise so as to edify, in the spirit of service which is that of their Master."
While affirming the supreme and universal authority of the pope, the Catechism nevertheless continues to affirm a certain independence of the bishops. The bishops are much more than the pope's servants whose authority comes from Rome.
CCC #895 "...the bishops should not be thought of as vicars of the pope. His (the pope's) ordinary and immediate authority over the whole Church, does not annul, but on the contrary CONFIRMS AND DEFENDS THAT OF THE BISHOPS." (emphasis mine)
It is important to understand that episcopal authority does not flow through the pope. It is the authority that Christ Himself gives to every bishop through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. That is why in #894, the bishops are spoken of as "vicars and legates of Christ". It is apostolic authority bestowed with an excellence and responsibility for which every bishop will give account.
My concern with your last post is that it seems to fail to recognize that though Catholic Tradition holds to a high and more extensive view of the authority of Roman bishop, it is only only alongside of a similarly high view of the authority of the local bishops within their territories. Cyprian's Letter #59 teaches the same thing as Ignatius of Antioch in all of his letters about the local bishops, while at the same time affirming what we now believe about the pope as the center of Catholic and priestly unity. We do not have to make a hypothesis about why Cyprian was contradicting himself within the same letter. It seems to me like they reflect what the Catholic Church teaches about itself.
Thanks for your consideration.
Greetings Rory,
The point which Clarke, et al., are making is that Letter 59:14:2 is a precedent for Cyprian's later elucidations on the subject. Not only would it not have made sense for him to give such elucidations when the occasion for that letter was to establish and embolden Cornelius' position against his opponents, but it would in this context have been counterproductive. Such elucidations were, however, entirely germane to Cyprian's reaction to Stephen's, as Saxer put it, "intervening in the affairs of the African churches." And hence, I suspect, why we see so many prominent patristic scholars coming to such conclusions through discourse from the mid-20th century onwards. Allow me to provide yet another example:
“setting himself against the position of Stephen I (254-257), concerning the validity of baptism administered by heretics, Cyprian made it known that in his view the primacy of Peter did not extend to his successors. He even explicitly rejected the Roman claims that Stephen seems to have established upon Mt 16, while emphasizing the responsibility of the entire episcopal college for the unity of the church (Ep. 68,3).” (Basil Studer, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 3:48-49)
Finally, regarding the linking of the "Chair of Peter" to Rome, we've already seen Brent's summation that in Cyprian's view, based on internal analysis of his letters, "Peter’s Chair is the chair of any bishop in any diocese and not exclusively at Rome." And we can furthermore find support for this view external to Cyprian's letters; as opposed to a unique position concocted by Cyprian for the express purpose of combating Stephen, we instead see a similar teaching in one of his contemporaries just a few years earlier in Caesarea, Palestine:
“And perhaps if we, as Peter, should say what ‘Simon Peter answered and said’ in his statement, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’, [Matthew 16:16] flesh and blood not having revealed it to us, but a light from the Father in heaven which shone in our heart, we also become what Peter became, being pronounced blessed because the reasons for his blessing have extended also to us. The reason is that flesh and blood have not revealed to us about Jesus being ‘the Christ, the Son the the living God’, but the Father in heaven, from heaven itself, has revealed a revelation to us that lifts us up unto the heaven which removes every ‘veil’ from the heart, [cf. 2 Corinthians 3:15-16] and has restored the spirit of the ‘wisdom’ and ‘revelation’ of God, [cf. Ephesians 1:17] so that we may ‘become citizens’ in heaven. [Cf. Philippians 3:20] But also, if we have said as Peter, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ (since flesh and blood have not revealed it to us, but a light from the Father in heaven has shone in our heart), we become Peter, and the Logos might say to us, ‘You are Peter’, and the remaining words. For everyone is a rock who is an imitator of Christ, from whom they drank who ‘drank from the spiritual rock that followed’. [Cf. 1 Corinthians 10:4] And every teaching of the church and the life of the community connected with it is built on every such rock. For the church that God is building is in each of the perfect who possess a collection of the teachings and deeds and all the thoughts which go to fill up the blessing.”
(Origen, ca. 249, Commentary on Matthew 12:10, in Oxford Early Christian Texts 30:98-99)
Dear Mr. Amie. Thanks again for your undeserved consideration. I am disappointed. I mistakenly thought that you had misunderstood something. Please accept my apologies. I was expecting a minor concession on your part. Instead, I am not even able to understand your reply to my nonsense!
Oh well. Pray for a fool. Love and do what you will needs to be my only rule. At least I have adhered to that.
God bless you.
Rory McKenzie
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Hi Errol and Rory,
Some great comments the last couple of days! Have a number of musings I want to share, but they will have to wait until this evening--heading over the river in a few minutes for our biweekly shopping.
Errol, Clarke's 4 volume translation and commentary of Cyprian's letters is one of two of the available English translations of Cyprian's epistles (Vassall-Phillips' being the other) I do not have in my personal library. I have ordered Clarke's 4 volumes and I'm looking forward to reading them when they arrive.
More later the Lord willing....
David,
You might also be interested in volume 25 which contains Cyprian’s The Lapsed and The Unity of the Catholic Church as translated by Bévenot, and the relatively recently published volume 78 with his treatises To Demetrius and On Mortality as translated by Geoffrey D. Dunn.
Hi Errol,
Before I get into your 08/22 post, I would like to touch on a couple of other points.
First, in your 08/25 post you mentioned two Cyprianic books. I listed Bévenot's book, St. Cyprian ‘‘The Lapsed’’ and ‘‘The Unity of the Catholic Church’’ (Ancient Christian Writers, Vol. 25, 1957), in my opening post and linked to the various digital formats available at the Internet Archive (see above). As for the second, Geoffrey Dunn's St. Cyprian: Pamphlets on Pandemics (Ancient Christian Writers, Vol. 78, 2024), I was not aware of it, so thanks much for bringing it to my attention.
Second, I was planning on responding to your 08/22 post last night but when I got back from our biweekly shopping trip volume 1 of Clarke's 4 volume edition of Cyprian's letters was waiting for me (for some reason Amazon is shipping all 4 volumes separately), and I spent the evening reading it, hence the delay.
Now, in your 08/25 post you wrote:
>>I haven't read any modern patristic scholars who've taken up Ernest Wallis' position on the matter and thus I think it can safely be said that it's obsolete. And while John Chapman was also a legitimate patristic scholar he was a contemporary of Wallis whose work on the subject was published in 1928; not exactly the golden age of patristics which followed the World Wars and Great Depression.>>
John Chapman was born in 1865 and died in 1933 and Robert Ernest Wallis 1820-1910. Clarke (Vol. 1, p. 47) notes that Wallis' translations of Cyprian's works were first published in 1868, three years after the birth of Chapman. Chapman's first published works on Cyprian were in 1902, this indicates that the Cyprianic scholarship of the two were a full generation apart. BTW, the Cyprian chapter found in Chapman's Studies on the Early Papacy (1928) was first published in 1910, the year of Wallis' death.
Time for dinner, more later the Lord willing…
David,
Did Oliver Rodie Vassall-Phillips translate all of Cyprian's letters? I was only aware of his On the Unity of the Catholic Church. I hope you enjoy Clarke's translation as much as I did; easily the most exhaustively annotated. I would have loved to see Brent do a comprehensive translation of Cyprian's works, but am glad that he at least did a third or so of the letters and treatises.
I only meant that Wallis' and Chapman's lives overlapped by 45 years, with even Chapman's later career missing out on The Ressourcement Movement which in the forges of academia gave us greats among Roman Catholic patristic scholars like Jean Daniélou, etc., and even outside of Rome those such as Henry Chadwick. I spend the vast majority of my time with the primary source material, so when using patristic scholarship as a touchstone to check my understanding against I gravitate heavily towards believers from the more ecumenical era of patrology recognized by their peers in the field for their expertise.
Hello again Errol,
Before getting back to your 08/22 post, I need to clarify something I said in my last post to you that you had a question on; you wrote:
>>Did Oliver Rodie Vassall-Phillips translate all of Cyprian's letters? I was only aware of his On the Unity of the Catholic Church.>>
My bad. I was totally unclear when I mentioned Vassall-Phillips as one of the English translations of Cyprian’s works that I did not have in my library. I meant Cyprian’s entire corpus, not just his letters; going back and rereading what I wrote I can now see that I was not very clear. Thanks much for questioning me on this. But, with that said, Vassall-Phillips does provide a number of English translations of small portions of Cyprian’s letters in his book, Catholic Christianity or the Reasonableness of Our Religion.
Now, you wrote:
>> I informally debated this subject with Roman Catholic lay apologist Erick Ybarra several years ago>>
Wow, very cool. Do you have your notes from that debate that you could share?
>> “Cyprian is here not phrasing some dogmatic theory, much less thinking of Rome's jurisdictional authority; he is writings a skillful blend of indignant expostulation and knowing flattery. This is talk which at once expresses Cyprian's genuine respect for the great traditions of the great see of Rome—and which Cornelius of Rome would much like to hear.
“Much ink has flowed to make the text say more (or less) than it intends, and I do not propose to add to the flood.” (Graeme W. Clarke, Ancient Christian Writers 46:258)>>
Still waiting on Amazon/UPS for the above volume. With that said, I pretty much agree with what Clarke wrote above. Cyprian’s comments on the “Chair of Peter” and the bishop of Rome’s unique connection with that phrase certainly lacks clarity in his writings. As you have personally experienced, Catholic apologists have a tendency to exaggerate Cyprian’s non-systematic statements on this issue, whilst Prot apologists and modern ecumenists under state them. I concur the following assessment from the pen of John Chapman:
>> If we explain away with Koch all Cyprian’s witness to Roman primacy, and base our view of his "theory" on a few selected passages about the independence of bishops, we are bound to be consistent, and not conclude merely that Cyprian rejects all primatial right, but that he rejects all conciliar authority, all possible canon law, all uniformity of practice!>> (Studies, p. 45)
Grace and peace,
David
Errol,
I just found the following on the web:
https://erickybarra.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/more-on-st-cyprian-of-carthage/
Is he the same gent you debated with?
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