PREFACE. The Nos. in the are of a 63. THE Epistles of S. Cyprian exhibit in detail but one portion of his character of mind or thought. Unlike the collections preserved of S. Ambrose or S. Augustine, not margin one has survived, written upon a subject in any sense the Ep. private, or to a private friend. It was remarked long since by S. Jerome'," Blessed Cyprian, like a most pure fountain, floweth sweetly and softly; and being wholly occupied in the exhortation to holy action, hemmed in by the straits of persecution, he no where discoursed on the Divine Scriptures." Of the Epistles which are preserved, one", at least, which is chiefly taken up with the Sacramental meanings of Holy Scripture, indicates, as well as his "Testimonies,” a full possession of the system of Scriptural interpretation, which, whether by intuition or by tradition, was the heritage of the Ancient Church, as he in his turn aided to fix that meaning. That Epistle is like one flash from a mind we love, disclosing to us as it were a new world within it, enlarging and rearranging all our previous thoughts of it, and deepening our reverence towards it. Of a kind, which will with many command little sympathy now, it shews a reverential contemplation and grasp of the hidden meaning of Holy Scripture in its Sacramental aspect, which we must the more admire in one, whose duties, almost from the time of his conversion, were of intense and absorbing activity. One such has been preserved to us perhaps, to correct narrow views as to a mind, chiefly called to the " care of the Churches" and the external maintenance of things deeply internal, discipline and unity. Yet, 1 S. Jer. Ep. 49. ad Paul. mostly, He Who distributeth even to His Saints as He wills, has withdrawn the rest from sight, and exhibited His servant to us, directly, only in the single yet manifold relations of the shepherd of his people, an eminent Pastor in the whole Church. So God "tempereth the body" together; and S. Cyprian the more occupies the place which his humility loved, while he has but the office of one member of the body, ministering eminently in the functions only of practical life, and leaving others to supply what from him is lacking. His Epistles are not only mostly of the same stamp and character, but they even group chiefly together round the difficult practical questions, with which his brief Episcopate was harassed. On him, indeed, fell well-nigh the care of the Western Church; during the eleven years of his Episcopate, he survived five Bishops of Rome, whose chief office appears to have been to prepare for that highest, their Martyrdom. At the most critical time, the Roman See was vacant for above a year; when filled, the Episcopate of Cornelius was first to be vindicated against Novatian; it was opposed for a time even by Confessors in his own Church; a year later it was still unsettled and Cornelius himself was 59.§.2. daunted; that same year (A. 252.) saw S. Cornelius a Martyr and S. Lucius, his successor, in banishment; Pope Stephen's Episcopate alone passed beyond the third year, and even then important cases in Spain and Gaul were decided by the weight of S. Cyprian, in the one case against the previous judgment of Stephen, in the other, through him; as, equally in the time of S. Cornelius, both decisions as to the lapsed, as well that which granted restoration after protracted 55, 4.5. penance, as their immediate restoration on the eve of the new persecution under Gallus, were first enacted by an African, and subsequently adopted by a Roman, Council. sqq. € 67. d €8. e f 57. & Life, §. 6. His Episcopate followed so closely upon his conversion, that the deep grace already visible alone took it out of the 2 Small collections were made by St. C. himself, Ep. 20. 25. 32. 35. 3 S. Fabian's martyrdom was Jan. 20. A. 250; S. Cornelius was not elected just before Easter, A. 251. (Ep. 43. §. 2.) but was shortly after. (Ep. 44.) 66 7. k 29. 43. 3. • 11, 3. 14. 30. r 18. Apostolic restriction, so that it has been a marvel, whence he," having never learned," could be imbued so deeply and so accurately with the whole of Christian doctrine and discipline. His Episcopate pointed him out to be demanded “ for the lions"," and, directed by God to retire, he h 22. 59, was proscribed. Apart, in concealment, with few Clergy 16, 3. around him*, in an exile of two years, he had in a new crisis, 43, when delay was ill brooked yet partial decisions dangerous, to hold together and unite the mind of the Western Church. The Roman See was vacant; in his own was a faction personally opposed to himself, seeking to win popularity by laxer measures", and supported by one layman", as it seems, 16, 34. with all secular influences; intestine divisions; the miserable" 41. number of lapsed' over the whole world, (the result of pre-p 10. 11. vious laxity,) forcing a decision yet aggravating its difficulty; numbers liable in sickly seasons' to be carried off by death, 11, 1. their denial of their Lord uncancelled, and Satan tempting them deeper to renounce willingly in deeds and a heathen life and the pleasures of sense Him, Whom they had unwillingly for fear of, or some through, extreme' tortures denied in word; among the lapsed themselves, various degrees of sin and penitence"; Martyrs and Confessors led by over-easiness 24.25. or misguided by the factious presbyters to facilitate an in- §. 4. discriminate or unrepentant admission; and exposing him 15.16, §. 3. 23. to odium and hard speeches from his people; the lapsed, 27, 2. with the people, extorting restoration from some Bishops of less a 36, 6. devoted courage and demanding it of himself"; the schismatics. 3.19.20, offering freely the peace which they had not to give, and §. 2. 33. withdrawing them from the hope of those Sacraments which 5. de they pretended to restore; the motives of his retirement misunderstood and for a time at least invidiously represented even by the Clergy at Rome", how much more by the factious" 8. 4 Baronius supposed that he must have been acquainted with our books as a heathen, "unless it be attributed to a miracle," (H. E. A. 250. §. 11.) Undoubtedly we are entitled to assume a higher illumination, see below. His account of the amazing infusion of a S the Holy Spirit in his Baptism, must t 55, 4. 56. 11, 1. * 22.27. e 43. n. m. 52. §. 5. in his own people! whatever was done a precedent for the whole Church, his own Presbyters needing his presence, yet himself hindered still further from returning by the very confusion, lest his return should be the occasion of disturbance, which the heathen powers might turn to evil! Any one must have the tenderness and holiness of S. Cyprian and his holy love of unity to estimate the intensity of suffering, at being unable at such a time to bind up the wounded, to raise the fallen, to gather in one those scattered from the fold. The decision of the Church on the lapsed determined the course of schism; so that scarcely had she formally adopted the merciful side, when they who had used laxity professed fp. 111, severity. Scarcely then had S. Cyprian returned, when the schism of Novatus and Novatian broke out, and with imper844. 45. fect information as to the events", amid misrepresentations 44. 48. diligently circulated by the emissaries of Novatian", he had 8.9. to take measures to procure the recognition of S. Cornelius' i44, sqq. and to keep his Church in communion with the true Bishop. Even the stedfast heart of S. Cornelius, which S. Cyprian * 59,2-4. so much extols, at one time sunk, shaken, it seems, by that which must be most trying to a religious mind, the dread lest, on occasion of religious discipline, those who might yet be saved should forsake the Church and be lost. S. Cyprian, having had to uphold his election, had now to encourage himself in the maintenance of the common discipline. Meanwhile, the dreadful pestilence which, it has been said, "from A. 250. to A. 265. raged without any interruption in every province, every city and almost every family of the Roman empire," had already begun; its severest ravages in Africa seem to be placed at this time; and continual preaching, arousing the people to the "profusion of exuberant 8.9. |