Letters

Cyprian of Carthage and his correspondentsc. AD 249–258

Some eighty letters to and from the bishop of Carthage, written during the Decian persecution, the schism of Novatian, the dispute with Rome over baptism and the persecution of Valerian. They are first-hand evidence for all four.

The collection holds Cyprian’s own letters and a number written to him or about him, among them letters from the clergy of Rome, from the Roman bishop Cornelius and from Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. They were written as events unfolded.

Because they are working letters they show things a later history would smooth over: the letter the Roman clergy sent to Carthage on hearing that Cyprian had withdrawn (2 [8]), the pressure put on him by confessors who issued letters of pardon to the lapsed (14 [20]), and the sharpness of his quarrel with Stephen I. They also give only one side of that quarrel. Stephen’s letters are lost, and his position is known from the sentences that Cyprian and Firmilian quote in order to refute them (73.1 [74.1]; 74.17 [75.17]).

Two numberings are in use. The linked translation follows an older order; modern scholarship follows the Oxford edition. Thus the letter to Antonianus is 51 in the translation and 55 in modern editions.

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