Carthaginian episcopate of the time of St. Cyprian

In September 256, Saint Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, convened a Council, which brought together the primates of all African Churches: eighty-three people. The Council was convened for the following reason: heretics and schismatics who repentantly returned to the bosom of the true Church were either baptized or only anointed with myrrh. The practice here was different: in the East and Africa they baptized, in the West they limited themselves to anointing; followed their long-rooted customs, and neither the East from the West, nor the West from the East demanded the abandonment of these ancient customs. Everything was peaceful until Stefan, a tough and powerful man, turned out to be the bishop of the Roman See. He declared himself “bishop of bishops,” demanded that heretics in the East and Africa should not be baptized, but only anointed with chrism, and threatened those who disobeyed with excommunication. Africa was outraged. The Carthaginian Church always maintained good relations with Rome; the Bishop of Rome was honored as the successor of the Apostle Peter, but they never considered that he had the right to rule in all Churches and establish his own rules everywhere. The East was also possible. Bishop Firmilian of Cappadocia, an authoritative and highly respected man, in a letter to Saint Cyprian called the Bishop of Rome a arrogant and ill-mannered fool. Saint Cyprian decided, as was his custom, to involve all African bishops in the discussion of the issue of the baptism of heretics, which worried both the Church and the laity. Eighty-three bishops gathered, as we have already said. Everyone was invited to express their opinions “freely and calmly” in writing. These opinions (“sentiments”) contain material for characterizing African bishops contemporary with Saint Cyprian. These are church-educated people: they know the Holy Scriptures and love to support their thoughts with references from the Old Testament, the Gospel, the Epistles of the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John. They are interested in the history of their native African Church: they know about former Councils and are familiar with their decrees. Some graduated from a grammar school, and perhaps even a rhetoric school: they write well, are masters of antitheses (1) and (22), prove their thoughts from Scripture and common sense and express it briefly and convincingly. “Whoever says that heretics have the power to baptize, let him first say who the founder of the heresy is. If heresy is from God, then heretics also have God’s mercy; If the heresy is not from God, then can heretics have the grace of God or communicate it to anyone? (Prnvatian from Sufetula, 19). Suddenly, a proof was put forward, prompted not by logic, but by ardent love and devotion to the Church: “If a husband, going on a long journey, entrusted his wife to the care of a friend, then the friend makes every effort to ensure that no one encroaches on her purity and chastity. Christ and our God, departing to the Father, entrusted us with the Church, His bride: will we preserve her in purity and immaculateness, or will we hand her over, immaculate and chaste, to adulterers and seducers? He who puts ecclesiastical Baptism on a par with heretical Baptism betrays it to libertines” (Venantius of Finissa, 49). Heretics do not live in a separate community; they are interspersed in the midst of the whole people, mixed with them; the bishops meet with them daily. And they not only shower the heretics with abuse from their abusive vocabulary, not rich, but very expressive (the enemies of Christ; the sons of Antichrist, covered with the fetid pus of heresy; the synagogue of Satan; everyone is possessed by a demon, and they must be reprimanded), but they also present a specific accusation to them: they are leading the sheep of Christ away from the Church, this receptacle of truth, which has always been there and abiding; “by setting traps, they plunder the flock of Christ” (17) and engage in propaganda of their heresy, using Scripture, which they interpret in their own way, in their favor: “they tear apart the holy and wondrous words of Scripture with their lying words” (31). Nowhere in Saint Cyprian - neither in his letters nor in his treatises - is there any mention of public disputes, such as those that Justin the Philosopher conducted with the pagan Crescent, but there is no doubt that the bishops objected to the heretics in their sermons or in the district messages to the flock of their dioceses. To return the human soul to the Church, to free the human soul from the power of the devil, is their duty, a feeling clearly expressed in the words of Bishop Secundian given below. Those who return to the Church are treated with care and mercy; everyone is asked whether he left the Church already baptized (he, of course, is not baptized a second time), what place he occupied in the heretical hierarch. The past is not reproached. “Let us be in communion with them,” says Bishop Felix of Bagai affectionately (12). The words of Bishop Secundian of Fambia breathe with Christian charity: “If they (the heretics) are not baptized in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore do not receive remission of sins, then on the day of Judgment they will accuse us that we did not baptize them and therefore they did not receive Divine grace” (80). Bishops are imbued with the consciousness of the high dignity of their rank - they are the successors of the apostles: “The truth of the Universal Church, our Mother, remained and remains with us” (Monulus from Girba, 10); “We, by the grace of God, are called friends of God” (Sekundus from Tse-dia, 11); they govern the Church, “having the same authority as the apostles” (Clare of Mascula, 79). The participants of the Council leave an indelible impression. Strong in their unanimity, devoted to the Church, good shepherds, caring not only for their flock, but also for every human soul, they preserved the unity of the Church and overcame schisms and heresies. They left so little information about themselves: their name, place of service, a brief “sentiment” through which its author peeks through, but these modest people deserve great respect and grateful memory.