thage. From this place he comforted the Church through letters. In a dream he saw foreshadowed the bloody fate which should in a year befall him. Having been called back ttom exile, he withdrew for a brief season to his country home. Under the con- sul Galerius Maximus, the successor of Aspasius Pa- temus, he received his final hearing. With serene composure and the words '• God be praised,' he wel- comed the sentence, which was that he should be ex- ecuted by the sword. Followed by a large crowd of spectators, he was led out beyond the city to a spot planted with trees. Here he laid off his over-clothes, kneeled down, prayed, and received the stroke of dtoth, on the 14th of September, A.D. 258. To the executioner he gave twenty-five pieces of gold. The Christians buried him near the spot on which he suf- fered martyrdom. Over his grave, as well as over the place where he suffered death, churches were af- terwards erected, which were, however, demolished at the invasion of the Vandals under Genseric. Ac- cording to a legend, Charlemagne conveyed his bones to France, where- they were preserved, first at Lyons and afterwards at Aries." Other churches also (Ven- ice, Compile, and Rosnay in Flanders) claim to be in possession of his remains.
The character of Cyprian and his acts, in the vari- ous circumstances of his life, have been variously esti- mated. While some admire and praise his exalted views and shining virtues as a Church dignitary, others charge him with pride and despotism. The holy ear- nestness with which he honored his calling, the high degree of self-denial he manifested in life and in death, can as little be denied him as his extraordinary quali- fications and activity as t leader in the Church. Herein we must seek his peculiar greatness. Specu- lative thinking was not his forte. In this respect he is excelled not only by the Alexandrians, but also by Tertullian, to whose theology he conformed his own. Prominent among his doctrinal presentations is that of the Church, the unity of which he develops, not so much dialectically and theoretically as he apprehends it in actual life, and sets it forth in telling pictures in a concrete and energetic way. (Comp. his work, De unkate ecclesia.) Cyprian may be regarded as the fa- ther of the Roman episcopal system. "In conse- quence of confounding the ideas of the visible and invisible Church, he referred all Christian life to communion with a definite external Body. In his view the Church was an outward organism founded by Christ, of which the bishops were the pillars ; to them the Holy Spirit was communicated through the ordination of the apostles, and hence they were the indispensable links for connecting the Church with Christ. Only through them could the Holy Spirit be imparted, and out of the Church no one could be saved. Extra eccletiam heme vMilem nulla taltu. It is of no avail, sa3rs Cyprian, what any man teaches; it is enough that he teaches out of the Church. It can be only human outrageous wilfulness to substitute any- thing for a divine institution, to erect a human altar instead of the divine" (Neander). Nor can it be de- nied that Cyprian laid the foundations of the primacy of the see of Rome. He placed the unity of the Church in the episcopate, making the bishops representatives of the apostles ; and farther, he made the chair of St. Peter the centre of episcopal unity, and the Church at Rome the root of all (radix et matrix ecdesicB CathoKctBy Epist. 45). Practiwdly, in his quarrel with pope Ste- phen (see above), he denied this primacy ; but the doc- trine lay in his own writings, and, after he had passed away, the legitimate inferences fh>m his doctrines were drawn by his successors. But, while the writings of Cyprian afforded undoubtedly a basis, on the one hand, for Roman and prelatical claims, they have unques- tionable merit, on the other, of setting forth Scripture as the sole ground of faith. During his controversy with pope Stephen, who was continually talking of
CTPRIARCH
626
CYPRUS
tradition, Cyprian uttered the sharp and pregnant apb« orbm, *' Custom without truth is only ancient error." As an interpreter of Scripture, Cyprian occupies alto- gether a practical stand-point, and hence does not de- spise allegory wherever it forces itself upon his fiincy. (See Herzog, Retil-EnryUop. iii, 220-221.) His life has been written by the African presbyter Pontiua, De vita Cypricau (in Ruinart, A eta Martyrwn, ii, and in the edi- tions of the works of Cyprian). With this, compare Acta Procontularia Martyrii Cypriani (in Ruinart, 216 sq.) ; Lactant Die, IfUt. v, 1 ; Eusebius, H. ^. vii, 8; also later works of Pearson, A nnale$ Cypriamei (Oxf. 1682); P. Maran, Vita Cypriam; H. Dodwell, Diu, Cyprianica (Oxon. 1684) ; Tillemont, Memoires^ ir, 76 sq. ; (Gervaise), La vie de S. Cyprien (Paris, 1717, 4 vols.) ; Freppel, St. Cyprien.et r^gUte tTA/rique en fM"« tiacle (Paris, 1865, 8yo) ; Quart. Review^ London, July, 1868, art. iv; Cooper, Free Church of ancient Christen- dom, p. 297 sq. (Lond. 1844, 18mo); Cunningham, His- torical Theology, ch. vi, § 6.
The best editions of Cyprian's works (Opera Omnia) are tboee of Oxf. 1682, fol., ed. Fell ; Amst. 1700 ; Par., Benedictine ed., 1726, fol., and Yen. 1728, fol. Trans- lation : The genuine Works of St. Cyprian, with his Life, by Pontius, by Nathaniel Marshidl, LL.B. (London, 1717, fol.) ; also in French by Lombert (1682). Trans- lations of separate tracts : On Mortality, with others, by Elyot (1584), by Brende (1568), by Story (1656), and by Lupset (1660) ; on The Lord's Prayer, by Pay- nel (1639); on Virgins, by Barksdale (1675); on The Unity of the Church, by bishop Fell (1681, 4to) ; and by Horsburgh (1815). The Epistles translated, LUfra- ryofthe Fathers, vol. xvii (Oxf. 1844); the Treatises, Lib. of Fathers, vol. iii (Oxford, 1840). The life and martyrdom of Cyprian, by Pontius, his intimate friend, is still extant, and. printed in several editions of the Opera Omnia, but the styloiis too rhetorical for simple truth. A compact edition of Cyprian for practical use is Cypriani Opera Genuina, ed. Gk>ldhom (Leips. 1888- 9, 2 parts). A new Lfe of Cyprian, by Poole, was published in 1840 (Oxf. 8vo) ; another, by Rettberg, in 1881 (Gdttingen, 8vo) ; another in Saint Cyprien, (Euvres completes, traduct. Guillon (Par. 1836, 2 vols. 8vo). New editions of several of the epistles were published by Krabinger (Tubing. 1853-1858, sq.).