If I have forborne in these notes to refer frequently to the Treatise of Bishop Sage, who often elucidates our author in a very learned manner, it is because he is almost wholly a controvertist, and therefore not to my purpose in this work. For his Cyprian, [4660] however, I entertain a sincere respect; and, as it might seem otherwise should I omit all reference to that work, I place its title in the footnote. Profoundly do I feel what another Scottish Doctor [4661] has beautifully said, "It is a loss, even to those that oppose errors and divisions, that they are forced to be busied that way."
X.
(From the slender twig, my son, thou hast ascended, p. 513.)
The text of Cyprian [4662] is: "Catulus leonis Juda, de frutice fili mi ascendisti, recubans obdormisti velut leo, et velut catulus leonis." Now, with this compare the comment of Calmet, citing the Septuagint (ek blastou = e germine), and rendering by metaphrase, "e medio plantarum, sive herbarum germinantium, ascendisti."
Here, then, we have the idea precisely equivalent to Jer. xlix. 19: "Ecce quasi leo ascendet de superbia Jordanis." The lion is recumbent among the sprouting twigs (frutice, or foliage) of the Jordan's banks in the springtime. The swelling of the river, which the melting of snows from Lebanon causes to overflow, rouses the reposing creature; and he goes up into the mountains. But Cyprian had in hand the old African, [4663] which seems to follow the LXX., and St. Jerome's vulgate did not; and this word frutice animates Cyprian's poetic genius. Its springtide imagery corresponding with Easter, [4664] he reads into it all the New Testament fulfilment: "Thou layedst down and sleepedst as a lion, and as a lion's whelp--but, from the shooting of the first verdure in spring, thou hast gone up on high--thou hast ascended." "Quis excitabit illum" is separated from this in the Paris text, and in the Septuagint, which the Old Latin followed, and so I have pointed it, though the Edinburgh reads: "and as a lion's whelp; who shall stir him up?"
XI.
(Third Book...religious teaching of our school, p. 528.)
Quirinus, Cyprian's "son" in the Gospel, seems to me to have been a catechumen of the competent class, i.e., preparing for baptism at Easter; or possibly of the higher sort, preparing for the first communion. Many tokens lead me to surmise that he may have been of Jewish birth; and, if so, he was probably baptized Quirinus after St. Luke ii. 2, as St. Paul borrowed his Roman name from Sergius Paulus. [4665] The use of the word secta, here rendered "school," suggests to me that the Vulgate got it (and so our English version) out of the old African Latin in Acts xxviii. 22. If Quirinus was a Hebrew, there is a playful irony in Cyprian's use of the word in expounding the pure morality of "the sect" everywhere spoken against.
Origen's treatise Against Celsus shows how cunningly the adversaries of the Gospel could assume a Jewish position against it; [4666] and the first two books of that work are designed to establish a perfect harmony between the Old Testament and the New, proving Christ to be the substance and sum of both. Cyprian may have foreseen the perils menacing the Church from the school of Plotinus, already rising, and which soon sent forth the venomous Porphyry. He was but a presbyter when he wrote this excellent defence of the faith; and his earnest pastoral care for his pupil is shown by his addition of a third book, entirely practical. The catechetical system of St. Luke's day [4667] had become a developed feature of the Church (St. Cyril's lectures in the succeeding century show how it was further expanded), and it also illustrates the purity of her moral teaching. Our author harmonizes faith and works, and presents her simple scriptural precepts in marked contrast with the putrid casuistry [4668] which Pascal exposes, and which grew up in the West with the enforcement of auricular confession by Innocent III., a.d. 1215. The theory of transubstantiation was also made a dogma at the same time, and operated, with the other, to the total extinguishment of the primitive discipline and worship. The withholding of the chalice in the Holy Communion followed, a.d. 1415.
XII.
(Good works and mercy, p. 528.)
Clement was able to remind the heathen, half a century before, [4669] that Christ had "already made the universe an ocean of blessings." Here we have the moral canons of Christianity reflecting the Light of the World, and they show us how practically it operated. As I have noted, the first Christian hospital was founded (a.d. 350) by Ephraem Syrus. His example was followed by St. Basil, who also founded another for lepers. The founding of hostels as refuges for travellers was an institution of the Nicene period. "In the time of Chrysostom," says one not too well disposed towards the Gospel, [4670] "the church of Antioch supported three thousand widows and virgins, besides strangers and sick. Legacies for the poor became common; and it was not infrequent for men and women who desired to live a life of especial sanctity, and especially for priests who attained the episcopacy, as a first act, to bestow their properties in charity. A Christian, it was maintained, should devote at least one-tenth of his profits to the poor. A priest named Thalasius collected blind beggars in an asylum on the banks of the Euphrates. A merchant named Apollinus founded on Mount Nitria a gratuitous dispensary."
So here our author's canons enforce (1) works of mercy; (2) almsdeeds; (3) brotherly love; (4) mutual support; (5) forgiveness of injuries; (6) the example of Christ's holy living; (7) forbearance; (8) suppression of idle talk; (9) love of enemies; (10) abhorrence of usury, (11) and avarice, (12) and carnal impurity: also, (13) obedience to parents; (14) parental love; (15) consideration of servants; (16) respect for the aged; (17) moderation, even in use of things lawful; (18) control of the tongue; (19) abstinence from detraction; (20) to visit the sick; (21) care of widows and orphans; (22) not to flatter; (23) to practise the Golden Rule; and (24) to abstain from bloodshed. In short, we have here the outgrowth of the Sermon on the Mount, and of St. Paul's epitome, "Whatsoever things are true," etc. [4671]
XIII.
(In the thirteenth Psalm, p. 546.)
The note says that the Oxford edition gives it as the fourteenth, while in our English Bibles it is the fifteenth. As I find that some of the readers of these works are puzzled by such confusions, I note retrospectively, as well as for future reference, the origin of such apparent blunders.
1. Our English version follows the Hebrew numbering, which is reputed the most accurate. By that a psalm is cited in the New Testament as if the numbering itself were important, and the product of inspired wisdom. [4672]
2. But the Greek Psalter differs from the Hebrew; Psalms ix. and Psalms x. being made into one, as confessedly their material suggests. The Seventy joined also Psalms cxiv. and Psalms cxv. But they divided Psalms cxvi., and also Psalms cxlvii.
3. The Vulgate Latin follows the LXX.; and our Ante-Nicene Fathers usually quote the Septuagint, or else the Old Latin, by which the Vulgate was probably governed. In the Vulgate, also, the Hebrew prefaces are often numbered as if they were verses, which is another source of confusion.
4. By the fusion of Psalms ix. and Psalms x., our Psalms xv. becomes the Psalms xiv., and so the Vulgate gives it; and the Oxford translators follow that.
5. But our text says "Psalms xiii.," and for this it is not easy to account. The Oxford editors regard it as a mere corruption of the text, and change it accordingly.
[4637] For the Ultramontane side, consult the Histoire de Photius, etc., par M. l'Abbé Jager, p. 41, ed. Paris, 1854. For the Greeks, La Papauté Schismatique, etc., par M. l'Abbé Guettée (pp. 286, 288, etc.), Paris, 1863.
[4638] "Whatever is said in commendation of St. Peter is at once transferred to the occupant of the papacy, as if pasce oves meas had been said to Pius IX." Burgon, Letters from Rome, p. 411, ed. 1862.
[4639] Compendium Ritualis Romani, etc., Baltimori, 1842, p. 195.
[4640] Burgon, Letters from Rome, p. 417.
[4641] Th. C. Cypriani de Unitate Ecclesiæ ad optimorum librorum fidem expressa, cum variis lectionibus, ad notationibus Fellii, Baluzii, etc., instructa. Curante M. F. Hyde, M.A., etc., Burlingtoniæ, MDCCCLII.
[4642] Cap. vi. 14.
[4643] New York Independent, April 25, 1878.
[4644] Hippolytus, vol. iv. p. 161.
[4645] 1 Cor. xiv. 16.
[4646] Rev. iii. 14.
[4647] Note a striking use of it, as a name of Christ, by Commodian, vol. iv. 43, p. 211.
[4648] Num. v. 22; Deut. xxvii. 15; 1 Kings i. 36; 1 Chron. xvi. 36; Jer. xxviii. 6; in the Psalmspassim.
[4649] Vol. iii. cap. xxvii. p. 690, this series.
[4650] P. 178.
[4651] A most instructive work, though I by no means accept his theories in full.
[4652] Guettée, p. 143, ed. New York.
[4653] Compare Peshito Syriac, where Cephas is the very word applied to all believers. Ed. Trostii, 1621.
[4654] Richter, Canones et Decreta, etc., p. 10, ed. Lipsiæ, 1853.
[4655] a.d. 348.
[4656] Acts xv. 13.
[4657] Acts viii. 14.
[4658] See Barrow, Works, vol. iii. p. 95, ed. New York, 1845.
[4659] Gal. ii. 11-14.
[4660] The Principles of the Cyprianic Age, etc., a.d. 1695. Reprinted, Edinburgh, 1846.
[4661] Leighton, On St. Peter, i. 2, Works, i. p. 30, London, 1870.
[4662] Ed. Paris, 1574.
[4663] Scrivener, Introduction, etc., p. 302, ed. 1874.
[4664] Jordan overflows its banks at the time of the passover, Josh. iii. 15; v. 10, 11.
[4665] Acts xiii. 7-9.
[4666] Vol. iv. p. 462.
[4667] Luke i. 4. Greek.
[4668] See that very useful little publication of the S. P. C. K., Dr. Littledale's Plain Reasons against Joining the Church of Rome, pp. 18 and 205.
[4669] See vol. ii. p. 202, note 5.
[4670] Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. ii. p. 86, ed. New York, 1872. See vol. ii. p. 202, note 5.
[4671] Phil. iv. 8.
[4672] Acts xiii. 33.
cyprian carthage_council anf05 cyprian-carthage_council The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian /ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.vi.html
The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian. Concerning the Baptism of Heretics
The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian. [4673]
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Concerning the Baptism of Heretics. The Judgment of Eighty-Seven Bishops on the Baptism of Heretics.
Prooemium.--When Stephen, Bishop of Rome, Had by His Letters Condemned the Decrees of the African Council on the Baptism of Heretics, Cyprian Lost No Time in Holding Another Council at Carthage with a Greater Number of Bishops. Having Therefore Summoned Eighty-Seven Bishops from Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, Who Assembled at Carthage in the Kalends of September, a.d. 258, This Third Council on the Same Matter of Baptism Was Then Celebrated; At the Beginning of Which, After the Letters on Either Side Had Been Read, Cyprian, by Implication, Condemns the Assumption of Stephen. [4674]
When, in the kalends of September, a great many bishops from the provinces of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, had met together at Carthage, together with the presbyters and deacons, and a considerable part of the congregation who were also present; and when the letter of Jubaianus written to Cyprian had been read, as also the reply of Cyprian to Jubaianus, about baptizing heretics, and what the same Jubaianus had subsequently rejoined to Cyprian,--Cyprian said: You have heard, my dearly beloved colleagues, what Jubaianus our co-bishop has written to me, taking counsel of my poor intelligence concerning the unlawful and profane baptism of heretics, as well as what I wrote in answer to him, decreeing, to wit, what we have once and again and frequently determined, that heretics who come to the Church must be baptized and sanctified by the baptism of the Church. Moreover, another letter of Jubaianus has also been read to you, wherein, replying, in accordance with his sincere and religious devotion, to my letter, he not only acquiesced in what I had said, but, confessing that he had been instructed thereby, he returned thanks for it. It remains, that upon this same matter each of us should bring forward what we think, judging no man, nor rejecting any one from the right of communion, if he should think differently from us. For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, [4675] nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. [4676] But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there.
Cæcilius of Bilta [4677] said: I know only one baptism in the Church, and none out of the Church. This one will be here, where there is the true hope and the certain faith. For thus it is written: "One faith, one hope, one baptism;" [4678] not among heretics, where there is no hope, and the faith is false, where all things are carried on by lying; where a demoniac exorcises; where one [4679] whose mouth and words send forth a cancer puts the sacramental interrogation; [4680] the faithless gives faith; the wicked bestows pardon of sins; and Antichrist baptizes in the name of Christ; he who is cursed of God blesses; he who is dead promises life; he who is unpeaceful gives peace; the blasphemer calls upon God; the profane person administers the office of the priesthood; the sacrilegious person establishes an altar. In addition to all these things, there is also this evil, that the priests of the devil dare to celebrate the Eucharist; or else let those who stand by them say that all these things concerning heretics are false. Behold to what kind of things the Church is compelled [4681] to consent, and is constrained without baptism, without pardon of sins, to hold communion. And this thing, brethren, we ought to flee from and avoid, and to separate ourselves from so great a wickedness, and to hold one baptism, which is granted by the Lord to the Church alone.