TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
RECORDS OF THE CHURCH.
No. XIX.
THE HOLY CHURCH THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORLD DOTH ACKNOWLEDGE THEE.
St. Cyprian on the Unity of the Church.
St. Cyprian was Bishop of Carthage, and was martyred in the Valerian persecution, A.D. 258. His authority stands very high in the Church, from his early date, and from the force and magnanimity of his character. He was originally a teacher of rhetoric, and was converted to Christianity by one Cæcilius, a priest, whose name he afterwards assumed. From the time he was a Catechumen, (i.e. a candidate for baptism,) he devoted himself to the stricter form of Christian obedience, believing that in this way he should best arrive at the knowledge of divine truth; according to the text (John vii. 17.) "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine," &c. Soon after he was baptized he sold his goods to assist the poor. He was afterwards ordained Priest; and, on the death of the Bishop of Carthage, elected in his place. During the Decian persecution, he was clamorously demanded by the populace at the heathen shows, to be thrown to the wild beasts, and in consequence retired from Carthage to a place of safety, where he remained till the fury of the enemies of Christ abated. Some years afterwards the persecution was renewed under the emperor Valerian, when he was banished, by the Roman governor, to a city at some distance from Carthage. Here he remained eleven months, and at the end of this time was arrested by his persecutors, and beheaded in the neighbourhood of his see, on September 14, A.D. 258.
His treatise on the Unity of the Church is especially valuable, as showing the clear and complete view taken by Christians at that early period, of the doctrine of the One Holy Catholic
