Thomas Allies - The Church of England cleared from the charge of Schism

But it was reserved for a more celebrated controversy, fully to bring out St. Cyprian's view of the relation of the Bishop of Rome to the rest of the Episcopal body: I mean, of course, the controversy whether heretics should be admitted into the Church by rebaptization or by the imposition of hands. I most fully believe, be it observed, that Cyprian acknowledged the Roman Primacy, that he admitted certain high prerogatives to be lodged in the Roman Pontiff, as St. Peter's successor, which did not belong to any other Bishop. It is this very thing which makes his conduct the more remarkable. He took a very strong view on one side of the controversy in question: and St. Stephen took an equally strong one on the other. St. Stephen, we all know, turned out to be right. That fervent Pontiff, it may be remarked, when St. Cyprian would not give up his view, seemed inclined to treat him much as St. Gregory the Seventh did a refractory Emperor, or St. Innocent the Third, the dastard tyrant John. This may be very satisfactory to the modern defenders of Papal omnipotence, but St. Cyprian's conduct is not so at all. St. Cyprian called a Council of Bishops of the provinces of Carthage and Numidia; they attended to the number of seventy-one, and decided that heretics should be rebaptized. St. Cyprian informs the Pope of the decision of himself and his colleagues. After saying that they had found it necessary to hold a council, he proceeds — 18 18 Ep. 73. "But I thought I ought to write to you and confer with your gravity and wisdom concerning that especially which most belongs to the authority of the priesthood, and to the unity alike and dignity of the Catholic Church derived from the ordering of a Divine disposition… This, most dear Brother, we have brought to your knowledge on account both of the honour we share with you, and of our single-hearted affection, believing that what is both religious and true is acceptable to you also according to your true religion and faith. But we know that some are unwilling to give up an opinion they have once imbibed, nor easily change their mind; but, without interruption to the bonds of peace and concord with their colleagues, retain certain peculiarities which have once grown into usage among themselves." (Such is the manner in which St. Cyprian mentions a judgment deliberately expressed by a Pope on a matter of high discipline, which involved a point of faith.) "In which matter we too do violence and give the law to no one, inasmuch as every Bishop has the free choice of his own will in the administration of the Church, as he will give an account of his acts to the Lord ." St. Stephen received this decision of the African Council so ill, that he would not even see the Bishops who brought it, nor allow the faithful to offer them common hospitality. So important in his eyes was the matter in dispute. St. Cyprian reports his answer in a letter to his Brother-Bishop Pompeius, in which he says, 19 19 Ep. 74. "Although we have fully embraced all that is to be said concerning the baptizing of heretics, in the letters of which we have sent to you copies, most dear Brother, yet, because you desired to be informed what answer our Brother Stephen sent me to our letters, I send you a copy of his rescript, after reading which you will more and more mark his error, who attempts to assert the cause of heretics against Christians and against the Church of God. For amongst other either proud or impertinent or inconsistent remarks, which he has written rashly and improvidently, &c… But what blindness of mind is it, what perverseness to refuse to recognise the unity of the faith coming from God the Father and the tradition of Jesus Christ our Lord and God… But since no heresy at all, nor indeed any schism, can possess outside (the Body) the sanctification of saving baptism, why has the harsh obstinacy of our Brother Stephen burst forth to such a degree?" &c… "Does he give honour to God, who, the friend of heretics and the enemy of Christians, deems the priests of God, maintaining the truth of Christ and the unity of the Church, worthy of excommunication?" St. Stephen had inflicted this on the African prelates, until they should give up their judgment on the point in question… "Nor ought the custom, which has crept in among certain persons , to hinder truth from prevailing and conquering. For custom without truth is but old error."… "But it is hurried away by presumption and contumacy that a person rather defends his own perverseness and falsity than accedes to the right and truth of another. Which thing the blessed apostle Paul foreseeing, writes to Timothy and warns, that a Bishop must not be quarrelsome, nor contentious, but gentle and teachable. Now he is teachable, who is mild and gentle to learn patiently. For a Bishop ought not only to teach, but also to learn, because he teaches better who daily improves and profits by learning better." Even as we copy this language used concerning a Pope by a great Bishop and Martyr of the third century, who elsewhere writes, 20 20 De Unit. Ecc. Oxf. Tr. "That our Lord built His Church upon Peter alone, and though He gave to all the apostles an equal power, yet in order to manifest unity He has by His own authority so placed the source of the same unity as to begin from one;" we feel the contrast to be almost overpowering with the tone in which the first Patriarch of the Latin Church, however good his cause might be, would now venture to address the Supreme Pontiff. Towards the conclusion of this letter he says, instead of admitting that the Pope's judgment terminated the matter – "This now the priests of God ought to do, preserving the Divine precepts, so that if in anything truth has been shaken and tottered, we may return to the fountain-head of the Lord, and to the evangelical and apostolical tradition, and that the rule of our acting may spring thence, whence its order and origin arose."

After receiving the Pope's rescript, and his excommunication, St. Cyprian convoked another Council of the three provinces of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, which was held at Carthage on the 1st of Sept. 256. It was attended by eighty-five Bishops, among whom were fifteen Confessors, beside Priests and Deacons, and a great part of the people. St. Cyprian opened it, observing: "It remains for us each to deliver our sentiments on this matter, judging no one, nor removing any one, if he be of a different opinion, from the right of Communion. For no one of us sets himself up to be a Bishop of Bishops, or by fear of his tyranny compels his colleagues to the necessity of obedience, since every Bishop according to his recognised liberty and power possesses a free choice, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let us all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who singly and alone has the power both of setting us up in the government of His Church, and of judging our proceedings. " 21 21 Op. St. Cypr. p. 329. ed. Baluz. The Bishops delivered their judgments seriatim , finishing with St. Cyprian, and unanimously ratified what they had agreed upon before, that heretics should be admitted into the Church by baptism, and not merely by the imposition of hands: and thus an African Council of the third century treated a judgment of the Pope, and his sentence of excommunication until they altered their practice.

But these last words of St. Cyprian are so remarkable in themselves, and have such a bearing on the present Papal claims, that they deserve further notice. Now, lest we should imagine that St. Cyprian was hurried away by the ardour of his defence of a favourite doctrine, and his sense of the Pope's severity, into unjustifiable expressions concerning the rights of Bishops, it so happens that we possess the comment of the greatest of the Fathers on these very words. St. Augustin, writing 140 years after, and fully agreeing with the judgment of Pope Stephen, as had the whole Church finally, quotes the whole passage. "'It remains for us each to deliver our sentiments on this matter, judging no one, nor removing any one, if he be of a different opinion, from the right of communion.' 22 22 Tom. ix. p. 110. There he not only permits me without loss of communion further to seek the truth, but even to be of a different judgment. 'For no one of us,' saith he, 'sets himself up to be a Bishop of Bishops, or by fear of his tyranny compels his colleagues to the necessity of obedience.' What can be more gentle? What more humble? Certainly no authority deters us from seeking what is the truth: 'since,' he says, 'every Bishop according to his recognised liberty and power possesses a free choice, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another:' certainly, I imagine, in those questions which have not yet been thoroughly and completely settled. For he knew how great and mysterious a sacrament the whole Church was then with various reasonings considering, and he left open a freedom of inquiry, that the truth might by search be laid open… I cannot by any means be induced to believe that Cyprian, a Catholic Bishop, a Catholic Martyr, and the greater he was the more in every respect humbling himself, that he might find grace before God, did, especially in a holy Council of his colleagues, utter with his mouth other than what he carried in his heart, particularly as he adds – 'But let us all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who singly and alone has the power both of setting us up in the government of His Church, and of judging our proceedings.' Under appeal then to so great a judgment, expecting to hear the truth from his colleagues, should he offer them the first example of falsehood? God avert such a madness from any Christian, how much more from Cyprian. We possess then a free power of inquiry, admitted us by Cyprian's own most gentle and true language."