Cyprian on the Unity of the Church

In 251 the church at Rome chose Cornelius as bishop (Chronograph of 354 part 13 (Liberian Catalogue), Cornelius). Eusebius reports that the presbyter Novatian held that Christians who had sacrificed could never be received back, and that a synod of sixty bishops condemned him; he quotes a letter of Cornelius which says that Novatian had himself consecrated as a rival by three bishops brought to Rome for the purpose (Eusebius, Church History 6.43.1–2, 6.43.8–9). Novatian’s envoys were turned away at Carthage (Cyprian, Letters 40.1–2 [44.1–2]). Cyprian, who faced a breakaway group of his own there (Cyprian, Letters 54.14 [59.14]), then wrote On the Unity of the Church.

Christ gave the keys to Peter first, Cyprian argues, although all the apostles received equal power, in order to show that unity begins from one (Matthew 16:18–19) (Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 4). The bishops hold that unity in common: “The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole” (Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 5). Whoever leaves the church leaves salvation: “He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother” (Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 6).

The chapter on Peter survives in two versions. One adds that a primacy is given to Peter and asks whether a man who deserts the chair of Peter can think that he is in the church; the other lacks those sentences, which the editor of the translation linked here prints in his notes and calls spurious (Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 4, with the editor’s notes). Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical of 1896, quotes the chapter in support of the Catholic teaching that Christ chose Peter and his successors as the principle and centre of the church’s unity (Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum 15). Calvin, in the Institutes, quotes it to show that Christ gave the keys to one man not to set him above the others but to commend the unity of the church, the other apostles being Peter’s equals in honour and power (Calvin, Institutes 4.6.4).

Writing to Cornelius, Cyprian called Rome “the throne of Peter” and “the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source” (Cyprian, Letters 54.14 [59.14]). Yet he held that baptism given outside the church was void, since there is “no salvation out of the Church”, and that converts from heresy must be baptised (Cyprian, Letters 72.21 [73.21]). Stephen I of Rome ruled that nothing should be changed from what had been handed down: such converts were to be received by the laying on of hands. Cyprian called this an error (Cyprian, Letters 73.1–2 [74.1–2]). Eusebius quotes Dionysius of Alexandria as saying that Stephen had written that he would not hold communion with the bishops of Cilicia, Cappadocia and Galatia, who followed the same practice (Eusebius, Church History 7.3, 7.5.3–5). On 1 September 256 eighty-seven African bishops voted for Cyprian’s position, after he had told them that none of them set himself up as “a bishop of bishops” (Council of Carthage (256) opening address). Firmilian of Caesarea in Cappadocia attacked Stephen for boasting of his succession from Peter (Cyprian, Letters 74.17 [75.17]).

Under the emperor Valerian Cyprian was exiled in August 257 and beheaded near Carthage on 14 September 258 (Proconsular Acts of Cyprian pp. xxv–xxviii). In 314 the Council of Arles decided against the African custom of rebaptising (Council of Arles (314) canon 9 (8)). His sentences on the one church and the one episcopate have been quoted on opposite sides since, as the appeals of Calvin and Leo XIII show (Calvin, Institutes 4.6.4) (Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum 15).