doctrine—an attempt which would certainly never have been dreamed of if this spurious passage had not seemed to make him so strong a support. Such special pleading is performed with fullest ability by P. Ballerini (A.D. 1756, de Vi ac Primatu Romm. Pontiff. xiii. § iii. ed. Westhoff, 1845). The MS. history is to be found fully in Hartel's preface, p. ix. p. xliii. It was rejected by Baluze (p. xiii. p. 397 p. 409, and Latini, Bib. S. p. 179 and praef.) and inserted by authority in the editions by Manutius and the Benedictines. The actual origin of the interpolation is partly in marginal glosses (as Latini proved) and partly in an Ep. of Pelagius, ii. (A.D. 854; Pelag. ii. Ep. 6; Labbe, vol. vi. p. 627; ed. Ven. 1729), who produces as "terrible testimonies of the Fathers" a passage of Augustine nowhere else found, as well as this one four centuries before it made its way into a manuscript. Its introduction of the primacy of Peter as the centre of unity is a clumsy interruption of the argument and an overthrowal of Cyprian's universal principle of the "copiosum corpus Episcoporum" (Ep. 68, iii.; 55, xx.) as the core of the visible unity of the church. The rest of the treatise is the development in beautiful language, and the illustration from nature and scripture, of his principle. Schism is a divine test and prejudicial separation of unbelievers in principle. Lastly, unity in the visible church must mirror the unity of God and the faith, and separations are due, not so much to individual teachings as to a radical selfishness commonly sanctioned in religious, no less than in secular, life.
The Working of the Legislation.—The legislation had been brought out by the clergy—naturally the austerer class; the one which had most inducements not to fall. It was too severe. The approach of the great plague evoked edicts for sacrifice and roused superstitions which renewed the popular feeling against Christians, and led to the magisterial and popular outbreak of A.D. 252, which is too formally called the Persecution of Gallus (Ep. 59, viii.), and which supernatural presages, not justified by the event, foreshewed as more cruel than that of Decius (Epp. 57, vi.; 58, i.). Of the libellatics some rigorously tried to follow, others openly defied the conciliar enactments (Epp. 57; 65, iii.; 68, ii.). Many palliations appeared on examination. A second council of 42 bishops at Carthage, held on May 15, 252 (Ep. 59, xiii.), determined to readmit without exception or postponement all who had continued penitent. Their synodic letter (Ep. 57), by Cyprian's hand, is a complete answer to his former sterner strain. The motive cause is the necessity of strengthening by communion those who will shortly be called to suffer.[1] The Novatianists having attracted converts from heathenism and now given up hope of Cyprian, consecrated their legate Maximus to be (anti-) bishop of Carthage.[2] The lapsed of the lax party, not being penitents, were not admissible on the new conditions; the party had increased to a number reckoned scarcely smaller than the Catholics (Ep. 59, xxi. 17), but the milder terms now offered would diminish them. The leaders therefore needed a more positive basis (Ep. 59, xv. xvi. [14]), and being taunted as the only unepiscopal body among Christians (Ep. 43, v.), procured the adhesion of Privatus, a deposed bishop (Ep. 59, xiii.), and consecrated Fortunatus a second anti-bishop in Carthage[3] by the hands of five bishops.[4] This fact was immensely exaggerated (59, xiv. 11), and Felicissimus sailed to Rome as legate of his new chief, hoping that a recognition might be procured for numbers which would be useful against Novatianism. They reported the unpopularity of Cyprian at Carthage, and threatened to appeal, if rejected, to the Roman laity (Ep. 59, ii. iii. xxv.). Cornelius was disconcerted. Cyprian's observations on this, which begin in a half sarcastic tone (Ep. 59, ii.), rise to glowing indignation, as he narrates the overwhelming work at this moment entailed on him by the examination in presence of the plebes of the returning schismatics and libellatics. The demand for strictness in readmission comes (as usual after times of trial) from the mass.[5]
The leniency of the bishop and council, the gross mistake of a rival episcopacy, and the popular claim for discipline, rapidly broke up the party (59, xxi.) and reduced its congregation to a handful.
Clerical Appeals under the Same Regulations.—It is not safe to assert that the terms of readmission for clerics were considered separately at the second council, but immediately after it is accepted that lapsed bishops and clerks could never resume orders (Ep. 55, ix.).
- ↑ Ep. 64. The synodic letter of the third council characterizes the ground for readmission accepted by the second council as necessitate cogente and that of the first as infirmitate urgente, and blames bp. Therapius for having neglected both. Ep. 64, therefore, cannot, with Mr. Shepherd (Letter ii. p. 10, following Lombert ap. Pearson Ann. Cyp. p. 45b), be dated before Ep. 57, nor (as Maran) synchronize with it; for they could not censure the neglect of a rule they were in the act of making; and why should only 42 bishops have issued letter 57, out of 66 who issued Ep. 64? Add to which that 64 is written in a peaceful time, such as began with Aemilian Ap. 253. See further Pearson's arguments, of which one is good, one inadequate.
- ↑ Not earlier. Ep. 52 ii. Novatus has not yet made a bishop in Carthage. Ep. 59 xi. Maximus is spoken of as sent nuper (A.D. 251) consecrated nunc (the Ep. being subsequent to Id. Mai. A.D. 252). From Ep. 55 x. we find they had bishops in many places before Council II. The step, then, had been delayed in Carthage, and this must have been because they still had hopes of Cyprian, which, though misplaced, seem to me not unnatural.
- ↑ Dean Milman (Lat. Chr. vol. i. p. 48) apparently missed the fact that there were two anti-bishops, one of each extreme; and also fell into the error of making Fortunatus a Novatianist.
- ↑ These were Privatus of Lambaese, condemned by a council of 90 bishops, under Donatus, Cyprian's predecessor; Felix, a pseudo-bishop of Privatus's making; Repostus, a lapsed bishop; Maximus and Jovinus, Sacrificati, whom, from their having been condemned by nine bishops, and then by the first council, I conclude to have been bishops.
- ↑ Socrates's (v. 19) statement that this was the occasion on which Poenitentiaries were first appointed to hear private confession, seems counter to the whole spirit of the time. Sozomen (vii. 6) represents the Roman mode of penance much later, when the bishop is himself the fellow penitent and the absolver. This contradiction of his statement that Poenitentiaries were an institution in the West as well as the East shews how little was known of the origin or date of the office.
