ASSESSING THE PRIMACY: A CONTEMPORARY CONTRIBUTION FROM THE WRITINGS

OF ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE. By: Murray, Russel. Journal of Ecumenical Studies.

Winter2012, Vol. 47 Issue 1, p41-63. 22p. Abstract: In this essay, the author
considers the contribution that a study of St. Cyprian of Carthage's writings on the
unity of the Church makes to contemporary ecumenical dialogue on the issue of
papal primacy, particularly for the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
It is the author's contention that this contribution challenges those engaged in such
dialogue, especially on the Roman Catholic side, to reconsider their understanding
of primacy in light of a renewed understanding of the Church as, first and foremost,
a communion of Churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] (AN: 86277109)

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PRECIS I. Introduction

In this essay, the author considers the contribution that a study of St. Cyprian of
Carthage's writings on the unity of the Church makes to contemporary ecumenical
dialogue on the issue of papal primacy, particularly for the Orthodox Church and the
Roman Catholic Church. It is the author's contention that this contribution
challenges those engaged in such dialogue, especially on the Roman Catholic side,
to reconsider their understanding of primacy in light of a renewed understanding of
the Church as, first and foremost, a communion of Churches.

Papal primacy: the term itself is pregnant with meanings. For the Roman Catholic
Church, the primacy of the Roman pontiff is a matter of doctrine. He is the
successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, "a permanent and visible source and
foundation of [the Church's] unity of faith and communion."[ 1] For other Churches
the authority that Roman Catholicism asserts as inherent to this primacy,[ 2] even if
not necessarily the primacy per se, is one of the greatest stumbling blocks to the
full, visible unity of the Church.[ 3] In this light, one cannot but note the
extraordinary progress that the Roman Catholic Church and its ecumenical partners
continue to make in their dialogues on this contentious issue. This is particularly
true of the dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church,
whose millennium of separation is, in part, rooted in their different understandings
of what it means for the bishop of Rome to be protos (first) among the taxis (order)
of the Church's ancient apostolic sees. This dialogue's decision to examine the
Roman pontiffs role in the communion of the Church in the first millennium,[ 4]
therefore, should prove a significant contribution to the search for unity, not only of
these sibling Churches but of all Christians as the one Church of Jesus Christ.

In service of this resourcement, I introduce the figure of St. Cyprian of Carthage. It is

my thesis that his classical insights into both the unity of the Church and the Petrine
ministry established to serve this unity would make an invaluable contribution to
the present state of Orthodox-Roman Catholic dialogue on papal primacy. I have no
doubt that both Orthodox and Roman Catholics will find Cyprian a challenging
dialogue partner, though I believe this will be especially true for Roman Catholics,
who will find that his contributions do not sit easily with their present understanding
of either the primacy or the nature of the Church it serves. While Cyprian's
contributions in themselves will not be able to resolve the differences between the
Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church on the issue of papal primacy,
they can play a significant role in helping Orthodox and Roman Catholics to
understand not only its place in "the ancient structural principles of Christianity" but
also the role it may play "in [responding] to the need of a unified Christian message
in the world of today."[ 5]

I shall demonstrate this thesis by establishing my sources, examining the insights

they afford in light of their historical context, and placing these insights into
dialogue with contemporary Roman Catholic teaching on the nature of papal
primacy and of the unity of the Church. I shall conclude by remarking upon how
Cyprian's insights are a timely aid for assessing progress in ecumenical dialogue on
the Petrine primacy of the Roman pontiff.

II. Establishment of Sources

A. Why Cyprian?

Cyprian is honored in both Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism as a martyr and

sainted Father of the Church. For this essay he is important for three reasons: ( 1)
Insofar as we know, he was the first Father to consider the Church's unity per se\
( 2) as part of this consideration he described a Petrine ministry established by
Christ in service of this unity; and ( 3) he developed these positions at a time when
the bishops of Rome sought to exert authority beyond the Church of Rome, claiming
it their right as the successors of St. Peter. As it is the question of this right and of
the prerogatives claimed as inherent to it that continue to be contested today,
Cyprian is an invaluable compass-point from which to orient and assess a dialogue
that is both faithful to the inheritance of the Church of the first millennium and
capable of serving the future, visible unity of the one Church of Jesus Christ.

B. The Sources

My principle source for Cyprian's understanding of Petrine ministry is the treatise in

which he considered it most thoroughly: De ecclesiae catholicae unitate, specifically
chapters four and five in which he considered it explicitly. As such, these two
chapters of De unitate will be my major point of reference, specifically with respect
to the manner in which Cyprian sought to clarify his position in these chapters by
deliberately rewriting them. I shall supplement this text with pertinent references
from Cyprian's surviving correspondence.[ 6]

As was established by Maurice Bvenot,[ 7] Cyprian composed two versions of De

unitate,[ 8] These versions are known as the Primacy Text (PT) and the Received
Text (RT): PT because it speaks of a primacy given to Peter by Christ for the unity of
Christ's Church; RT because it had been believed to be the only version of De
unitate until PT was rediscovered in 1563. Although scholars had debated the
proper ordering of these texts, it is now widely accepted that PT was written before
RT.[ 9] The reason for this, Bvenot argued, was Cyprian's reaction to the way that
Bishop Stephen of Rome was using the pro-Roman position upheld in PT to justify
exercising authority beyond his own see. I shall treat the context of this controversy
in the next section. First, I present the rival texts of De unitate below, beginning
with chapter four and continuing through the opening lines of chapter five, where
Cyprian brought his rewrite into line with the remainder of the treatise:[ 10]

4. But if anyone considers those things carefully, he [sic] will need no long discourse
or arguments. The proof is simple and convincing, being summed up in a matter of
fact. The Lord says to Peter: I say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will
build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not overcome it. I will give to you the
keys of the kingdom of heaven. And what you shall bind upon earth shall be bound
also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in
heaven [Mt. 16:18-19],

Primacy Text

And He says to him again after the resurrection: Feed my sheep [Jn. 21:17]. It is on
him that He builds the Church, and to him that He entrusts the sheep to feed. And
although He assigns a like power to all the Apostles, yet He founded a single Chair,
thus establishing by His own authority the source and hallmark of the [Church's]
oneness. No doubt the others were all that Peter was, but a primacy is given to
Peter, and it is [thus] made clear that there is but one Church and one Chair. So too,
even if they are all shepherds, we are shown but one flock which is to be fed by all
the Apostles in common accord. If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of Peter,
does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon
whom the Church was built, has he still confidence that he is in the Church?
Received Text

It is on one man that He builds the Church, and although He assigns a like power to
all the Apostles after His resurrection, saying: As the Father has sent me, I also send
you. Receive the Holy Spirit: if you forgive any man his sins, they shall be
forgiven him; if you retain any man's, they shall be retained [Jn. 20:21-23], yet, in
order that the oneness might be unmistakable, He established by His own authority
a source for that oneness having its origin in one man alone. No doubt the other
Apostles were all that Peter was, endowed with equal dignity and power, but the
start comes from him alone, in order to show that the Church of Christ is unique.
Indeed this oneness of the Church is figured in the Canticle of Canticles, when the
Holy Spirit, speaking in Our Lord's name, says: One is my dove, my perfect one: to
her mother she is the only one, the darling of her womb [Song 6:9], If a man does
not hold fast to this oneness of the Church, does he imagine that he still holds the
faith? If he resists and withstands the Church, has he still confidence that he is in
the Church, when the blessed Apostle Paul gives us this very teaching and points to
the mystery of Oneness saying: One body and one Spirit, one hope of your calling,
one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God [Eph. 4:4-6]?

5. Now this oneness we must hold on to firmly and insist on -- especially we who are
bishops and exercise authority in the Church -- so as to demonstrate that the
episcopal power is one and undivided too. Let none mislead the brethren with a lie,
let none corrupt the true content of the faith by a faithless perversion of the truth.

The authority of the bishops forms a unity, of which each holds his part in its
totality. And the Church forms a unity, however far she spreads and multiplies by
the progeny of her fecundity; just as the sun's rays are many, yet the light is one,
and a tree's branches are many, yet the strength deriving from its sturdy root is
one.

III. De unitate in Context

A. The Primacy Text (PT)

Cyprian composed the PT version of De unitate in response to a schism that

occurred within the Church of Rome in March, 251 C.E. As the reason for this schism
had previously made its presence known within Carthage, I shall begin this section
by first addressing the context for both schisms. I shall then examine, in turn,
Cyprian's response to the schism within Carthage and the manner in which this
response influenced what he would say to the Roman Church by means of De
unitate.

1. The Decian Persecution

According to the oft-cited maxim of Tertullian, martyrdom is the seed from which the
Church gives birth to new members. It is a maxim that history has often proved
true, yet history also offers testimony to the contrary -- that is, martyrdom has
occasionally been an effective means of inducing Christians to abandon their faith in
Christ. The persecution begun under the Roman Emperor Gaius Messius Quintus
Decius in 249 proved an occasion for both.

Even accounting for the tendency of ancient chroniclers to indulge in the art of
exaggeration, a considerable number of Christians acquiesced to Decius's demand
that they demonstrate their loyalty to the empire by sacrificing to its principle gods.
In some instances, they were led by their own bishops.[ 11] Whether the willingness
of these sacrificers (sacrificati) publicly to disavow their faith was born of genuine
apostasy or of simple pragmatism, their action stood in stark contrast to that of the
confessors, whose steadfastness, even to the point of martyrdom,[ 12] made them
heroes in the eyes of Christians who were desperate for a reason to believe in the
Tightness of their faith.

Not all Christians found themselves on one end or the other of this great divide,
however. Many continued to live as inconspicuously as they had before the
persecution. The more prominent went into hiding.[ 13] Among them was the newly
elected bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, who through vigorous correspondence
remained in contact with the faithful of both his city and other cities of the empire.
These included Rome, whose bishop, Fabian, was martyred in January, 250.[ 14]
Others who were either unable or unwilling to make themselves so invisible
obtained copies of the certificates (libelli) that had been issued to the sacrificati as
testimony to their act of imperial loyalty, though without their ever having offered
the requisite sacrifice themselves.

Despite these differences, with the suspension of persecution upon Decius's death
in 251 all Christians had to face the same questions: Who would be counted among
the Church's faithful sons and daughters? Who would be welcomed to communion?
Who would be barred? Who would make this determination? For Cyprian the
answers were clear, and, as bishop of the most influential city in North Africa, he
would deliver them clearly and with authority, which he did by means of his treatise
De lapsis.

2. De lapsis

By means of De lapsis, Cyprian responded to his Church's questions even before the
persecution ended. Only confessors and those who had not apostatized would be
considered in the communion of the Church.[ 15] Barred were the lapsed (lapsi): the
sacrificati[ 16] and those who had obtained libelli. Although these libellatici had not
actually sacrificed to the gods, they had publicly disassociated themselves from the
Church.[ 17] Therefore, they could be readmitted only after public penance.[ 18] As
for the sacrificati, readmission could be granted only upon danger of death.[ 19] As
for who possessed the authority to make these decisions, by his very act of issuing
De lapsis Cyprian revealed this to be none other than the Church's rightful bishop,
that is, himself.[ 20]

Not everyone in Cyprian's flock followed his lead. Some of the presbyters and
confessors thought him unduly harsh, to say nothing of the many penitent lapsi.
[ 21] Under the leadership of the deacon Felicissimus,[ 22] they separated
themselves from Cyprian's ministry.[ 23] When the persecution ended, Cyprian
acted quickly to reassert the authority of his office. Upon his return to Carthage at
Easter, 251, he reaffirmed the decisions of De lapsis, winning support for it from
North Africa's bishops.[ 24] At the core of his action was Cyprian's concern to
reassert the authority of the office he held as Carthage's legitimate bishop -- an
authority he believed was established by Christ for the unity of Christ's Church and
its salvific mission in the world.

For Cyprian, "Christianity meant liberation from vice, darkness and insecurity, not
the perfection of the hitherto incomplete yearning after the divine." It was
"redemption from sin rather than enlightenment through guidance of the divine
Word" that lay at the heart of Cyprian's understanding of the Church's faith and of
its mission in the world,[ 25] and the Church could not fulfill this mission if it was not
steadfastly united in faith under the leadership of its legitimate bishop.[ 26] The
bishop was, in Cyprian's eyes, the true and rightful successor to the Apostles'
divinely established ministry to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and keep Christ's
faithful people united in their communion with and in Christ.[ 27] Further, in
conjunction with his fellow bishops, this ministry of unity extended to the entire
communion of Churches.[ 28] Through their communion in faith and charity, the
bishops were an effective sign of the unity of all the Churches throughout the world
as the one Church of Jesus Christ.[ 29]

Far from being the product of ecclesiastical egoism, Cyprian's assertion of his
authority by means of De lapsis was born of his concern to maintain what he
conceived as the bishop's rightful place within the Church as the guarantor of both
its unity and, via this unity, its fidelity to the mission given it by Christ: to be an
effective witness to the salvific will of Christ for the world. Such was Cyprian's
constant concern for the Church, be it the Church of Carthage or the Church of
Rome.

3. De unitate

While Cyprian was meeting in synod with North Africa's bishops to discuss the
delicate issue of the lapsi, letters arrived from Rome announcing the election of
Fabian's long-awaited successor, Cornelius, one of Rome's presbyters.[ 30] At the
same time, other letters arrived protesting Cornelius's election and announcing the
election of another of Rome's presbyters, Novatianus, who, unlike Cornelius, was
more rigorous in his approach to the lapsi, that is, reconciliation only upon danger of
death.[ 31] In response, the North Africans declared their support for Cornelius, as
well as for the decisions of a Roman synod held under his leadership that had both
excommunicated Novatianus and adopted a process for reconciling lapsi that
corresponded to their own practice.[ 32] For his own part, Cyprian took up
Cornelius's cause, which he understood to be nothing less than the cause of the
Church itself.

Novatianus had broken unity with his legitimate bishop and, in consequence, with
the Church. Furthermore, by inducing others to do the same, both in Rome and
abroad,[ 33] he was leading Christians away from the saving grace of Christ.[ 34]
There could be no countenancing this. Therefore, Cyprian stood by Cornelius. Even if
Cornelius's approach to reconciling the lapsi went beyond the limits he had
established in Carthage, Cyprian never withdrew his support. In Cornelius he saw a
bishop motivated by his own fundamental desire: to preserve the unity of the
Church for both the salvation of its members and that of the world.[ 35] In support
of Cornelius's claim to the see of Rome, Cyprian composed De unitate, specifically
the PT version (in II-B, above) to which I now turn.

At first glance these words may appear a vigorous defense of the primacy of the
Roman pontiff as bishop of Rome. The historical context of De unitate, however,
clearly suggests the opposite: It is a defense of Cornelius as bishop of Rome. Thus,
as Cyprian had done for Carthage by means of De lapsis, so would he now do for
Rome by means of De unitate. call Christians to embrace the saving grace of Christ
by returning to the unity of Christ's true Church, by reestablishing communion with
their rightful bishop. Cyprian began by challenging his readers to recognize the full
import of their actions in light of the true identity of the one they had chosen to
follow, that is, Satan, who upon "seeing his idols abandoned and his temples and
haunts deserted by the ever growing numbers of the faithful, devised a fresh deceit,
using the Christian name itself to mislead the unwary. He invented heresies and
schisms so as to undermine the faith, to corrupt the truth, to sunder our unity."[ 36]

With eternal life in the balance, Cyprian taught that the only way Christians could be
sure they were united with Christ was to ensure that they were united with their
rightful bishop.[ 37] Through this unity, Christians remained within the Church and
avoided "disloyal troublemakers" who "will not keep the unity,"[ 38] "who,
disregarding God's teaching, crave for strange doctrines and introduce authorities of
human origin,"[ 39] even if they were once among the Church's lauded confessors.
[ 40] Christ has only one flock.[ 41] Those who do not gather within it scatter it.[ 42]
For them, "all hope of its salvation is lost."[ 43] So, Cyprian called his schismatic
audience back to the Church, exhorting them to "go back to the origin of [the
Christian] realities," that is, "the teaching of their heavenly Master."[ 44] "The Lord
says to Peter: I say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my
Church, and the gates of hell shall not overcome it. I will give to you the keys of the
kingdom of heaven. And what you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in
heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven"
(Mt. 16:18-19).[ 45]
Within this context of schism, Cyprian's appeal to Peter was an appeal to the
foundation of the Church's unity: the unity of Christians with their rightful bishop.
The singularity of St. Peter was exemplary of the unity of the Church; that of his
chair, exemplary of the authority of every bishop who succeeds to Peter's place
within his own Church. In this light, Cyprian saw the primacy given Peter the man as
temporal, not ontological, in nature, and he saw Peter's place among the Apostles
as a particular instance of who each of them -- and their successors, the bishops --
was to be for the Church: the rock upon which the Church would stand in faith.[ 46]
Thus, Cyprian held that, while there are many bishops as there were once many
Apostles, these bishops are united in one act of service to the one flock of Christ, a
service they rendered individually, within their own respective sees, and
collectively, as shepherds of the one Church of Christ, embracing the world in all its
Churches.[ 47]

It was with this in mind that Cyprian asked: "Does a man [sic] think he is with Christ
when he acts in opposition to the bishops of Christ, when he cuts himself off from
the society of His clergy and people?"[ 48] "If a man does not hold fast to this
oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the
Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he still confidence that he is in
the Church?"[ 49] Cyprian's answer: "Whoever breaks with the Church and enters on
an adulterous union, cuts himself off from the promises made to the Church; and he
who has turned his back on the Church of Christ shall not come to the rewards of
Christ: he is an alien, a worldling, an enemy. You cannot have God for your Father if
you have not the Church for your mother."[ 50]

As Bvenot remarked, the context of De unitate argues against any restriction of the
cathedra Petri to the see of Rome. Cyprian's "argument was pertinent not only for
Rome, where [Novatianus] had broken with Cornelius , but also nearer home,
where Felicissimus and his faction were in revolt against himself." It was based upon
"the unicity of the origin (in Peter) of Church and authority alike. The one authority
was perpetuated in the legitimate successions of the bishops, and to break with
one's bishop was to break with the one, Christ-established authority, that is, the
'Chair of Peter.'"[ 51] This was Cyprian's mind, yet would it resonate with the mind
of the bishop of Rome, whose Church Cyprian had once hailed as "the primordial
Church, the very source of episcopal unity"?[ 52]

B. The Received Text (RT)

Cyprian presumably composed the RT of De unitate in or immediately after 255, at

the height of a controversy over whether baptisms performed in schismatic and
heretical Churches were valid.[ 53] He did so in reaction to the claim of Bishop
Stephen of Rome to be able to settle the matter on his own authority as the
successor of St. Peter. To understand Cyprian's response to Stephen in the RT, it is
necessary first to consider the ways in which he addressed two prior controversies
in which Stephen was involved, both of which involved the deposition of bishops,
the first in Spain and the second in Gaul.

1. Principles for Episcopal Authority

In the autumn of 254,[ 54] emissaries from Spain sought the assistance of the North
African bishops on the matter of Basilides of Emerita and Martialis of Asturica,
bishops recently deposed by a local synod for having been libellatici during the
Decian Persecution, but who had subsequently been reinstated in their sees by
Stephen.[ 55] The North Africans' decision to hear the appeal and render their
decision -- against Stephen -- reveals the principles upon which Cyprian, who spoke
in their name, would later deal with Stephen on the issue of schismatical baptisms:
unity, competence, and collegiality.

Cyprian's argument on behalf of his brother bishops was straightforward: Basilides

and Martialis had separated themselves from the Church and, as a consequence,
from the Spirit that effected their ministry. They no longer had a claim to their
previous offices, for they were no longer bishops. Stephen had decided the issue on
faulty principles, contrary to the faith of the Church. Cyprian went even further. He
declared that the very right of a bishop to judge a case brought for his consideration
was contingent upon his ability to consider the case competently, that is,
considering every side of the issue. Stephen had not done this. He had made his
decision after hearing only the side of the deposed bishops, without seeking the aid
of any of his brother bishops, who may have had better knowledge of the case than
he had.

For Cyprian and his North African brothers, the unity of the Church and the ability of
those who served this unity to act competently, in accordance with the faith of the
Church and in accord with the mind of his brother bishops outweighed any
individual bishop's claim to authority, including the bishop of "the primordial
Church, the very source of episcopal unity."[ 56] These principles revealed
themselves again during the deposition of Marcianus, bishop of Aries, albeit with
different results.

In a letter to Stephen concerning Marcianus of Aries, Cyprian made clear to his

"dearly beloved brother" that he was commenting on a matter Stephen knew well. It
had already been brought to Stephen's attention by the bishops of Southern Gaul, a
territory traditionally considered to be within Rome's direct sphere of influence:
Marcianus's declared support both for Novatianus's stance toward the reconciliation
of penitent lapsi and Novatianus's schism.[ 57] Cyprian urged Stephen to act in
support of his brothers against the schismatic Marcianus[ 58] and to support his
excommunication and the election of a new bishop for Aries's desperate faithful.
[ 59]
As to why this particular responsibility to care for the welfare of the Church, which
all of the bishops share,[ 60] should fall so heavily upon Stephen's shoulders,
Cyprian explained:

It is our duty to preserve the honor of those glorious predecessors of ours, the
blessed martyrs Cornelius and Lucius. But much as we, for our part, honor their
memory, you, dearly beloved brother, far more than anyone else, are duty bound to
bring honor upon that memory and to uphold it. By exerting the full weight of your
personal authority; after all, you are the one who has been appointed to replace and
succeed them.[ 61]

Though markedly different in tone from his reply to the Spanish appeal, Cyprian's
approach to the issue of Stephen's exerting authority beyond Rome was consistent
with his approach to the Basilides/Martialis affair. Stephen was well informed about
Marcianus's loyalty to Novatianus and the plight of Aries's lapsi. Further, he knew
well the support that Southern Gaul's bishops had received from his predecessors
Lucius and Cornelius, who with these brother bishops had labored to preserve the
unity of the Church, both within their own Churches and within the communion of
Churches. Cyprian was not asking Stephen to act alone. He was asking Stephen to
take leadership, to join his authority as the bishop of Rome to that of his brothers in
order that their unanimity might demonstrate the unity of their Churches with one
another and with the entire Church of Christ throughout the world.

What would happen, though, should Stephen seek to exercise this authority upon a
matter over which his brothers were divided, a matter which, in his judgment, was
harmful to the Church's unity -- and on which he would not have Cyprian's support?
What would Cyprian's response be? The answer may be seen in the subsequent
controversy that arose in 255: the validity of baptisms performed in schismatic and
heretical communities.

Cyprian's judgment flowed logically from his ecclesiology: "Nothing that is separated
from the parent stock can ever live or breathe apart"; for them, "all hope of its
salvation is lost."[ 62] Thus, when the question arose of what to do with those who
had been baptized in Novatianus's community but now wished to enter into
communion with the Catholic Church, Cyprian responded:

On this matter we can speak only as far as the capacity of our faith allows, while
relying upon the sacred truth of the holy Scriptures, and our view is that without
exception all heretics and schismatics are without any powers or rights whatsoever.
And therefore, no exception ought to be, indeed can be, made in the case of
Novatianus. He continues to be like the others, outside the Church, he acts against
the peace and charity of Christ; he must be reckoned as one of the adversaries and
antichrists.[ 63]

Although he claimed to be presenting simply his own opinion on the matter,

Cyprian's approach to the question of schismatic/heretical baptism was firmly
rooted in the North African Christianity from whence he came. In line with the
traditions of Roman Christianity, however, Stephen took a decidedly different
approach to the question, one that led him to a very different answer.[ 64]

Although Stephen held that the Spirit was not effective in the ministry of those
outside the Church, he did not hold that baptisms performed by them were
necessarily invalid; they were merely ineffective. Stephen distinguished two actions
in the baptismal rite: the administration of the baptismal water, and the laying on of
hands. Whereas the former cleansed the baptized of his or her sins, the latter
imparted the grace of the Spirit, so that the sanctifying grace of baptism would be
effective in the Christian's life. Thus, Stephen concluded that all that was needed to
reconcile those who had been baptized in communities that were schismatic or
heretical to the true Church was for a legitimate bishop to confer upon them the gift
of the Spirit through the laying on of hands.[ 65]

Cyprian's reaction was swift. In 255, he led a synod in Carthage that denounced
Stephen's decision: "No one can be baptized outside of the Church."[ 66] In the
spring of 256, Cyprian led another synod that reaffirmed this judgment, and this
was followed by yet another synod that same year. From these synods only one
letter exists, sent by Cyprian to Stephen after the second synod in 256.[ 67]
Although nowhere in that letter did Cyprian directly confront Stephen or threaten
any break in communion,[ 68] the challenge was clear: "[I]n the household of faith
infidelity ought to be given no advancement. What do we leave for the good and the
innocent who never abandoned the Church, if we give honors to those who
abandoned us and rebelled against the Church?"[ 69]

Stephen's response was equally swift. He denounced the actions of Cyprian and the
North Africans as contrary to the apostolic traditions of the Church and demanded
that the rebaptism of schismatics and heretics cease immediately. He further
instructed that the reception of such persons conform to the apostolic tradition of
the Church of Rome.[ 70] In support of this decision, Stephen declared that he was
speaking with the unique authority of the Apostle Peter, whose divinely instituted
power of binding and loosing Stephen had inherited by virtue of his being the direct
successor to St. Peter's Chair -- bishop of the Apostle's Church, bishop of Rome.
[ 71]]

Unfortunately, history is silent regarding Cyprian's response to Stephen's claim.

Cyprian's remaining letters deal only with the renewal of the persecution that would
(tradition holds) claim his own life. Yet, whatever his response may have been, it
could not have been dissimilar to his action that history has preserved: Cyprian's
rewriting chapters four and five of what has come down to us as the RT of De
unitate.

2. A Question of Rightful Authority

In the RT (see section II-B, above), gone was the reference to Peter's primacy. Gone,
too, were all references to Peter's Chair. As Bvenot put it, it is as if one can hear
Cyprian saying to his Roman colleague: "But I never meant thatl"[ 72] In their place,
Cyprian added scriptural "proofs" concerning the unity of the Church. He also added
several new lines to the beginning of Chapter 5, to demonstrate that this unity was
not the concern of any one bishop, but of all bishops, lest some-one seek to
"mislead the brethren with a lie."[ 73] Attending to every detail, Cyprian went so far
as to alter the rhetorical question he asked in the PT: "If a man does not hold fast to
this oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith?" It now read: "If
a man does not hold fast to this oneness of the Church, does he imagine that he still
holds the faith?"

The lengths to which Cyprian went not simply to edit but also to rewrite these
pivotal chapters of De unitate testify to the integrity of his thought. That this rewrite
was done during a time when he was at odds with Rome's bishop does not detract
at all from this integrity. Rather, in light of the historical context outlined above,
Cyprian's action confirms it. Cyprian wrote De unitate to defend not the primacy of
St. Peter's see within Christ's one Church but the primacy of that unity willed by
Christ in founding the Church upon the Apostle, which Peter, in the singularity of his
own person, exemplified for the benefit of both his brother Apostles and those who
would succeed them in their ministry of unity, namely, the bishops.

The unity of the Church in faith and in fact, the indispensable role of the bishop as
the divinely established instrument of this unity, the ability of bishops to act
authoritatively on behalf of ecclesial unity only when competent to do so, the
imperative for bishops to act in concert with their brothers and according to their
common mind -- all these principles were central to Cyprian's ecclesiology.
Returning now to my introductory comments, I ask what light these insights shed
upon both the current discussion of the essential nature of the primacy claimed by
the bishop of Rome and upon how this primacy may be exercised in the service of a
visibly reunited Church.

IV. Assessing the Primacy

In the centuries since Cyprian composed De unitate, the Church has undergone
changes he could never have imagined, including the development of an
ecumenical consciousness recognizing the legitimacy of concepts that would have
scandalized him: an ecclesiology of "subsistence" rather than of exclusive
identification, the belief that Christians separated on points of dogma nevertheless
share in the one baptism of Christ, granting the possibility that the bishop of Rome
possesses primacy within the Church on the basis of his being the bishop of Rome.
Such concepts stand in stark contrast to the positions espoused by Cyprian, and any
attempt to harmonize them would lack credibility. This notwithstanding, if one takes
the time to listen closely to Cyprian, one will soon notice that he has something vital
to contribute to the current ecumenical dialogue on the role that the bishop of Rome
may play in a renewed and visibly reunited Church.

Cyprian's insights speak directly to several issues that directly influence the manner
in which ecumenical dialogue on both the Petrine primacy claimed by the Roman
pontiff and the manner in which it may serve the Church's unity are shaped,
beginning with the manner in which the Roman Catholic Church itself approaches
them. These issues are: ( 1) the relationship between universality and particularity
in Roman Catholic ecclesiology, ( 2) the juridical authority proper to the bishop of
Rome in light of this relationship, and ( 3) the manner in which the primacy claimed
by the bishop of Rome as successor of Peter is understood when examined through
the lens of doctrinal development. I shall consider each of them in turn.

A. The Church, Universal and Particular

On May 28, 1992, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (C.D.F.) issued a
letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church, titled "Some Aspects of the Church
Understood as Communion."[ 74] The letter opened by acknowledging that the
concept of communion is "very suitable for expressing the core of the mystery of
the church and can certainly be a key for the renewal of Catholic ecclesiology."[ 75]
It likewise observed that "some approaches to ecclesiology suffer from a clearly
inadequate awareness of the church as a mystery of communion."[ 76] This is
particularly the case when the term is applied to the union existing among
particular Churches (that is, local diocesan Churches) in such a manner that "the
concept of the unity of the church at the visible and institutional level" is weakened,
[ 77] as when "it is asserted that every particular church is a subject complete in
itself, and that the universal church is the result of a reciprocal recognition on the
part of the particular churches." The C.D.F. continued: "This ecclesiological
unilateralism betrays an insufficient understanding of the concept of
communion."[ 78]

In order to grasp the true meaning of the analogical application of the term
communion to the particular churches taken as a whole, one must bear in mind
above all that the particular churches, insofar as they are "part of the one church of
Christ," have a special relationship of "mutual interiority" with the whole, that is,
with the universal church, because in every particular church "the one, holy,
catholic and apostolic church of Christ is truly present and active." For this reason,
"the universal church cannot be conceived as the sum of the particular churches"
but in its essential mystery it is a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every
individual particular church.[ 79]

Much attention has been given the debate between Cardinal Walter Kasper and
then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger over the twofold priority given the Church Universal
in the above letter.[ 80] For the purpose of this essay, it is worth noting that, in his
"friendly reply" to Ratzinger, Kasper's words resonated with those of Cyprian when
he stated: "The relationship between the universal church and the local churches
cannot be explained in the abstract by way of theoretical deductions, because the
church is a concrete historical reality."[ 81] For that reality, Cyprian looked firmly in
the direction of the particular, local Church.

It is clear from his writings, including that of De unitate, that Cyprian's concern for
the unity of the Church was expressed in and through his concern for the unity of
the Churches -- the communion in faith and love that each Christian shared with his
or her bishop and, through the like communion that each bishop shared with his
brother bishops throughout the world, with all their brothers and sisters in Christ.
For Cyprian, "Church" was a personal reality. It flowed from the baptismal waters
that united each of the faithful both to Christ and, by virtue of the one Spirit who
effected their baptism, to one another. Thus, to be Christian was necessarily to be
united to other Christians in a bond of faith and love that was both preserved and
promoted by the ministry and communion of their bishops. To see the Church in any
other way would have been, for Cyprian, to turn a blind eye toward what Christ had
established: a living community of faith, whose unity, exemplified by the single
figure of St. Peter, was to be served by the apostles and their successors, the
college of bishops, in every place that it had life, that is, in the Churches.

In this light, Cyprian's ecclesiology is a challenge to that of the C.D.F. Granted, no

Particular Church "is a subject complete in itself,"[ 82] for vital to its identity as
Church is the unity intended for it by Christ with the other Churches. Yet, this does
not imply any ontological and/or temporal priority of the Church Universal over the
Church Particular. For Cyprian, an ecclesiology that would affirm such a priority
would, to borrow the language of the C.D.F., betray "an insufficient understanding of
the concept of communion,"[ 83] for it would favor the universal "in such a way as
to weaken the concept of the unity of the church" at the local, particular level.[ 84]

Recalling that for Cyprian the heart of ecclesial unity is found in the communion of
the local, Particular Church, it would follow that the Particular Churches exist in a
necessary relationship not to the Church Universal -- understood as some
overarching, extratemporal reality from which they each receive their ecclesial
legitimacy -- but in a necessary relationship to one another as the one Church of
Christ in its own particular place and time, a necessary relationship, a communion,
that is effected by the Churches' mutual fidelity to the unity of faith and love that
Christ established upon Peter for them as Christ's one and indivisible Church. This
echoes the agreed statement issued from Ravenna by the Joint International
Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the
Orthodox Church. In discussing the nature of the Church's conciliarity at the
universal level, it stated:

Each local [that is, Particular] Church is in communion not only with neighboring
Churches, but with the totality of the local Churches, with those now present in the
world, those which have been since the beginning, and those which will be in the
future, and with the Church already in glory. According to the will of Christ, the
Church is one and indivisible, the same always and in every place. Both sides
confess, in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, that the Church is one and
catholic. Its catholicity embraces not only the diversity of human communities but
also their fondamental unity.[ 85]

In this light, the validity of a Church's ecclesial identity is seen to be a twofold

reality comprising both a Particular Church's own communion of faith and love and
the communion it shares with the other Churches in their own particularity.
Cyprian's challenge may be expressed in the following terms: Even to conceive of
the Church as a universal existent possessing ontological and temporal priority over
the Churches is to betray an insufficient understanding of the very reality of Church
itself. The Church does not exist apart from the Churches, for it is only in the
Churches that "the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of Christ" can be said to
be "truly present and active"[ 86] in the world, both living the essential unity that
they have in Christ and, by so doing, effectively witnessing to the salvific unity
Christ wills all humanity to share in Christ.

Vatican II hinted at such an understanding of the Church as a Church of Churches

when, citing Cyprian, it stated: "The individual bishops are the visible principle
and foundation of unity in their own particular churches in and from these
particular churches there exists the one unique catholic church."[ 87] This
statement, however, was qualified: The Particular Churches are "formed in the
likeness of the universal Church."[ 88] While this may be interpreted in line with
Cyprian's position, it may also be read as an instance of that tendency toward
ecclesial universalism that so unnerves the Catholic Church's ecumenical partners,
particularly the Orthodox Church. This is related to the concomitant tendency to
absolutize the authority of the Roman pontiff. This is clearly the case regarding the
issue of the juridical authority proper to the Roman pontiff as bishop of Rome.

B. A Question of Rightful Authority

In its dogmatic constitution Pastor aeternus (PA), Vatican I decreed:

Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church
possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this
jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both
clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are
bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true
obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in
those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the
world. In this way, by unity with the Roman Pontiff in communion and in profession
of the same faith, the Church of Christ becomes one flock under one Supreme
Shepherd. This is the teaching of the Catholic truth, and no one can depart from it
without endangering his faith and salvation.[ 89]
The Code of Canon Law puts it more succinctly and forcefully:

The bishop of the Church of Rome, in whom resides the office given in a special way
by the Lord to Peter, the first of the Apostles, and to be transmitted to his
successors, is the head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of
the universal Church on earth; therefore, in virtue of his office he enjoys supreme,
full, immediate and universal ordinary authority in the Church, which he can always
freely exercise.[ 90]

So that the full import of this authority may be unambiguous, the Code continues:
"There is neither appeal nor recourse against a decision or decree of the Roman
Pontiff."[ 91]

In light of these definitions, the concerns of the Roman Catholic Church's

ecumenical partners are not without warrant. The primatial authority of the Roman
pontiff presented above resembles more a justification for the divine right of kings
than the practical implication of Christ's commission to Peter to feed Christ's flock.
[ 92] Unfortunately, more than one bishop of Rome has acted upon this
resemblance in his exercise of the primacy. Whether the definitions of PA and the
Code must be abandoned in order to dismantle the monarchical papacy and quell
the fears of Catholicism's ecumenical partners is a matter of debate -- one to which
recent Roman Catholic scholarship answers in the negative.[ 93] What appears
beyond debate, however, is the determinative influence that Roman Catholicism's
present perspective on the nature of the Church Universal -- as exemplified in
Vatican I, the Code of Canon Law, and recent statements by the C.D.F. -- has upon
its understanding of the primacy it claims for the bishop of Rome as "the Vicar of
Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth."[ 94]

As Kasper has pointed out, the present emphasis upon the universality of the
Church is a development of the last millennium.[ 95] During that period, the needs
of the Churches came to be seen in terms of the needs of the Church, which in turn
were seen in reference to the papacy's struggle to assert its claims to primatial
authority, first within and then over Christendom. A result of this process was a view
of the Roman pontiff as the font of all ecclesial authority. This view gained
momentum during controversies of the Reformation and continued through the
struggles against Gallicanism and Josephinism. Vatican I capped this development,
so much so that, as the 1983 Code and Vatican II witness,[ 96] the authority of the
Roman pontiff continues to be defined principally in terms of his being "Vicar of
Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth."[ 97] That this is so because he
is bishop of Rome is often either overlooked or subsumed into considerations of his
role as universal primate. Cyprian's challenge is to turn such an understanding of
the primacy on its head.

As I alluded to above, Cyprian's ecclesiology draws the Church Particular out from
the backdrop of the Church Universal by recognizing in the former its own inherent
dignity as Church. The Church is the communion of Churches. Thus, the needs of
the Church are seen as the needs of the Churches, whose essential unity demands
that their members, especially the bishops, exercise mutual care and solicitude for
the apostolic faith that at once both animates their local realities as Church and
binds them to one another as the Church Universal. This is especially true with
respect to the Roman pontiff, who was honored in the first millennium as bishop of
the Church that "presides in love" over the communion of Churches -- an honor the
Orthodox Church has never denied him and with which it would honor him again,
under conditions more obviously in accord with the ecclesiology of De unitate than
with that of the bare texts of PA or the present Code of Canon Law.[ 98]

In light of Cyprian's ecclesiology, primacy is understood as a service that is realized

in the preservation and promotion of the communion in faith and love that unites all
the Churches as the one Church of Jesus Christ. This is accomplished by the bishop
of Rome when he acts, first and foremost, as the bishop of Rome, strengthening the
unity of the faithful of his own see in order that they may effectively be the Church
of Christ in Rome. It is from his place within the Church of Rome, protos within the
taxis of the ancient apostolic sees, that he reaches out to exercise his Petrine
ministry in a universal manner, strengthening the bonds of communion among all
the Churches by collaborating with their bishops -- "the visible principle and
foundation of unity in their own particular churches"[ 99] -- who, together with him
as the head of their college, "govern the house of the living God."[ 100]

It should be noted that such a collegial understanding of the primacy is not foreign
to Roman Catholicism. As I alluded to above, it was one of the characteristics of the
ecclesiology of Vatican II. However, as several prominent scholars have observed,
the manner in which collegiality has recently been codified in ecclesiastical law has
made collegiality appear to be at the service of the primacy, rather than the other
way around.[ 101] Again, Cyprian's insights challenge contemporary Roman
Catholic teaching to stand such an understanding of the primacy on its head and to
root it more explicitly within an ecclesiology that sees the Church as fundamentally
a communion of Churches. Such an understanding of Church and of the primacy
that serves it would help engender the trust needed for other Christian communities
to set aside their "painful recollections" of the papacy and receive the bishop of
Rome as the "first servant of unity" that the Roman Catholic Church proposes him to
be,[ 102] and the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
believes can be, in the spirit of the Undivided Church of the first millennium:

The fundamental worldwide ministry of the bishop of Rome would be to promote the
communion of all the local Churches: to call on them to remain anchored in the
unity of the Apostolic faith, and to observe the Church's traditional canons. He
would do this as a witness to the faith of Peter and Paul, a role inherited from his
early predecessors who presided over the Church in that city where Peter and Paul
gave their final witness.[ 103]
There can be no doubt that such a reenvisioning of the primacy of the Roman pontiff
would be far more difficult to define canonically than the primacy presently
enshrined in the Roman Catholic Church's Code. It would have to distinguish what is
of the nature of the primacy per se, together with all the rights inherent to it, from
the rights it holds by virtue of historically conditioned ecclesiastical law. Further, it
would have to define these rights in accordance with the various degrees of primacy
that the Roman pontiff holds as bishop of Rome, metropolitan of the Roman
province, primate of Italy, and "Vicar of Christ and pastor of the universal Church" --
and, perhaps once again, as patriarch of the West.[ 104] However difficult such an
attempt may be to incorporate Cyprian's insights into a thorough reform of this
primacy along the lines noted above, it would be an honest reflection of the
primacy's own history.

C. Roman Primacy and the Development of Doctrine

Since Roman Catholicism's adoption of a historical consciousness with respect to

doctrine, it has been customary to speak of a consistent development of papal
primacy, either in terms of a logical explication of what has always been implicit in
the life and teaching of the Church or in terms of an organic process that has
steadily unfolded into its present form from some ancient seed.[ 105] Continuity
and progress are the hallmarks of this view. Unfortunately for those who hold to
such a development, history reveals something quite different. As Hermann
Pottmeyer has observed:

This idea of an unbroken logical or organic development is questionable both

historically and theologically. In the realm of history it ignores the fact that along
with an undeniable continuity, breaks with venerable structural traditions occurred.
In addition, different metaphors and motifs, models and influences alternated,
without any logical or organic continuity to be found among them. The idea is also
theologically questionable, because it sees the forms taken by the Petrine office in
earlier ages as having been defective. Is the understanding of the Petrine ministry
which the fathers of the church or the bishops and popes of earlier centuries had to
be judged faulty because it did not completely correspond to that of Vatican I?[ 106]

Or, for that matter, with Vatican II? It is tempting for those who support a strongly
ultramontanist, principally universalist primacy to draw a straight line from Stephen
I through Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Pius IX, ending in Benedict XVI, as if the
condemnation of Hadrian I, the Great Western Schism, and the papacy of Alexander
VI were merely distractions (at best) or detours (at worst) along the inevitable
march to Vatican I. Yet, the distractions and detours were far more significant. They
helped to shape the papacy as we know it, as much as did the grace that sanctified
many of those who sat in Peter's cathedra and strove to fulfill its Petrine charge to
serve the unity of the Church in their particular moments in history. As Pottmeyer
noted: "It is more correct, both theologically and historically, to speak of a plurality
of possible and actual embodiments of the Petrine office. Each of these
embodiments is to be judged by whether it served the welfare and mission of the
church in a given age and was consistent with the commission given to Peter."[ 107]

V. Conclusion

In his 1995 encyclical Ut unum sint, the late Pope John Paul II invited Christian
leaders to engage with him in a "patient and fraternal dialogue," in order that,
"keeping only before us the will of Christ for his church," they may together discern
"a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is
essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation."[ 108] Responses
were not long in coming, yet these responses echoed a theme that the Roman
Catholic Church had heard time and again from the ecumenical partners with whom
it was already in dialogue: Before the issue of exercising the primacy can be
considered, the question of what is of essence to the primacy must be addressed.
[ 109] This is a question that "can only be answered by special historical studies and
not merely by speculative deductions from the concepts of keys, rock, or head,"
studies that have as their expressed aim to "distinguish what is proper to the
primacy -- what Christ conferred on Peter to be passed on to his successors -- from
the rights which he exercises by ecclesiastical law, and from those too which
accrued to him in particular historical circumstances."[ 110] For the Roman Catholic
and Orthodox scholars now engaged in such studies -- not to mention those from
other confessional traditions -- Cyprian of Carthage is a classical figure whose
writings make him more than an object for investigation; they make him a dialogue
partner.

At the outset of such a dialogue, it must be acknowledged that Cyprian wrote not
merely in a particular age; he also wrote for that age. Nevertheless, his insights into
the unity of the Church and the Petrine ministry established by the Sovereign to
serve it address so many of the questions asked today: In what sense may one
claim that the Sovereign established a primacy in Peter? In what sense can one
legitimately claim to have succeeded to it? What is of the essence of this ministry?
How does it relate to the other ministries that serve to build up Christ's Body,
particularly that of the bishops? How does it relate to the unity of the Church itself?
What are its legitimate rights, and how may its proper limits be discerned? Although
Cyprian's contributions cannot answer these questions fully, the ecclesiological
principles that guided him can serve as a sound compass-point from which to guide
our dialogue and assess the progress we desire to make. It is this: that the primacy
accorded the bishop of Rome be manifestly "in continuity with the ancient structural
principles of Christianity" and enable the Church, in all its Churches, to respond "to
the need for a unified Christian message in the world of today."[ 111] How could it
be otherwise for those who honor Cyprian as a sainted father of Christ's one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic Church?

Footnotes
[1]Vatican II, Lumen gentium, no. 18 (hereafter, LG). The translations for this and all
other conciliar decrees cited in this essay are from Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees
of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2: Trent-Vatican II (London: Sheed and Ward; and
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990).

[2]These are universal jurisdiction and the ability of the Roman pontiff to exercise
freely the Church's charism of infallibility when teaching on matters of faith and
morals; see Vatican I, Pastor aeternus, chaps. 3-4 (hereafter, PA); available
at http://www.fisheaters.com/pastoraeternus.html. Also see LG, nos. 18, 22, and 25.

[3]Throughout this essay, I use such terms as "Church," "Christ's Church," etc., to
designate, with deference to the ecumenical consciousness of Vatican II, the one,
albeit visibly divided Church of Christ. My source for this is Jean-Marie Tillard, "One
Church of God: The Church Broken into Pieces," One in Christ, vol. 17, no. 1 (1981),
pp. 2-12.

[4]This is the subject of the working document of the Joint Coordinating Committee
for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox
Church that leaked to the media following its 2008 meeting in Crete. At its 2010
meeting in Vienna, the Commission decided that the text needed further revision;
see "The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First
Millennium" at http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/13418147eng=y

[5]The North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Commission, Steps towards a

Reunited Church: A Sketch of an Orthodox-Catholic Vision for the Future, no. 7;
see http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/dialogue-with-
others/ecumenical/orthodox/steps-towards-reunited-church.cfm.

[6]Daniel Hamilton noted in his essay, "The Roman Primacy: The First Five Hundred
Years," Ecumenical Trends 39 (July/August, 2010): 2, that "historical science in its
present state cannot prove either that Cyprian wrote both versions [of De unitate]
or that the so-called pro-Roman version is the result of later interpolations." Then, it
is also not able to disprove the Church's long-held belief that Cyprian did write both
versions and that he did so in the order proposed by the late Maurice Bvenot, S.J.,
which I note in the text above. Until this occurs, I believe it justifiable to treat
Cyprian as the author of both versions of De unitate, as I do in this essay.

[7]Here and throughout this essay, I am indebted to Bvenot.

[8]Bvenot noted the existence of De unitate in over 160 manuscripts, which he

divided into six families. Thus, the texts that have come down to us are neither
uniform in content nor of the same quality. This fact and the fact that none of these
manuscripts is earlier than the sixth century make the rendering of a definitive
critical edition of De unitate impossible. See Maurice Bvenot, The Tradition of
Manuscripts: A Study in the Transmission of St. Cyprian's Treatises (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1961), pp. 1-17; for a listing of the families, see the appendices of
Maurice Bvenot, St. Cyprian 's De Unitate, Chap. 4, in Light of the Manuscripts,
Analecta Gregoriana 11 (Rome: Gregorian University, 1937), pp. 81 ff.

[9] A synopsis of the debate over the dates of PT and RT (NB: these are Bvenot's
abbreviations) is found in G. S. M. Walker, The Churchmanship of St. Cyprian,
Ecumenical Studies in History 9 (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1968), pp. 19-25. I
adhere to the dates proposed by Bvenot: PT in 251 C.E., and RT in 255 C.E. See
Maurice Bvenot, '"Primatus Petro Datur': St. Cyprian on the Papacy," Journal of
Theological Studies 5 (April, 1954): 19-35, on the debate over whether the PT was
even written by Cyprian.

[10]The translation is from Maurice Bvenot, tr., The Lapsed and The Unity of the
Catholic Church, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation
25 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press; and London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1957),
pp. 46-18. Bvenot's translation was based upon the critical Latin edition proposed
by G. Hartel in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 3.1 (Vienna, 1868),
pp. 207-264. With respect to chap. 4, Bvenot made a number of alterations based
upon his own study of the text. These are reflected in the RT of De unitate. Note
that I have altered the language of this translation in order that it may more readily
correspond to modern English. In no way do these alterations affect the intention of
the translation itself. Scriptural citations are italicized, as they were in Bvenot's
translation, although I have included their sources in the text itself for ease of
reference.

[11]G. W. Clarke, tr. and ann., The Letters of Cyprian of Carthage, vol. 3: Letters 55-
66, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation 46 (New York:
Paulist Press, 1986]), 59, no. 10 (hereafter, Letters followed by the letter number,
for all volumes of Cyprian's letters). Also see Robert M. Grant, Augustus to
Constantine: The Thrust of the Christian Movement into the Roman World (New
York, Evanston, IL, and Rome: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 226.

[12]Not all of those who refused to offer the requisite sacrifices were executed or
even imprisoned for very long. As W. H. C. Frend pointed out, the imperial edict was
so successful that local magistrates did not possess the means to hold their
prisoners. Having secured the apostasy or imprisonment/execution of a few
prominent Christians, they were content simply "to let matters be" (W. H. C. Frend,
The Early Church [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982; repr., London: Hodden and
Sloughton, 1965], p. 99). The empire did not want martyrs, just apostates (see G.
W. Clarke's introduction in G. W. Clarke, tr. and ann., The Letters of St. Cyprian of
Carthage, vol. 1: Letters 1-27, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in
Translation 43 [New York and Ramsey, NY: Newman Press, 1984], pp. 35-36).

[13]Frend, Early Church, p. 99.

[14]See Eusebius, The History of the Church, tr. G. A. Williamson, ed. and intro.
Andrew Louth, rev. ed. (London: Penguin Books, 1989), VI, no. 39.
[15]Cyprian, De lapsis, chaps. 2-3.

[16]Ibid., chaps. 7-8.

[17]Ibid., chaps. 27-28.

[18]Ibid., chaps. 32 and 35.

[19]Letters 55, nos. 6 and 17.

[20]Cyprian, De lapsis, chaps. 18-19; also see chaps. 16 and 28-29.

[21]Letters II,.1; 15, no. 1; and 23.

[22]Felicissimus had been established in his office not by Cyprian but by the
presbyter Novatus (Letters 52, no. 2), whose schismatic activities extended to
Rome, where he later became a leading supporter of Novatianus's more rigorous
form of Christianity.

[23]G. W. Clarke, tr. and ann., The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, vol. 2: Letters
28-54, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation 44 (New
York and Ramsey, NY: Newman Press, 1983), 41, no. 1; and 42-43.

[24]Letters, 55, no. 6. These provisions were modified by a later synod, at the
threat of renewed persecutions under Decius's successor, Gaius Vibius Trebonianus
Gallus, in 252. The synod permitted the reconciliation of all lapsi, provided they had
begun to do penance from the day they lapsed and had been received by their
bishops. The synod's concern was that, without immediate recourse to the Church,
these penitent lapsi would not persevere in their re-found faith (see Letters 57, nos.
2 ff; also see Grant, Augustus to Constantine, pp. 331-332).

[25]Frend, Early Church, p. 99. For Cyprian's account of his own conversion, see his
letter to Donatus (246/247 C.E.) in W. A. Jurgens, sel. and tr., The Faith of the Early
Fathers: A Source-Book of Theological and Historical Passages from the Christian
Writings of the Pre-Nicene and Nicene Eras (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press,
1970), p. 217.

[26]Cyprian, De lapsis, chaps. 18-19; Letters 43, no. 5.

[27]Letters 33.

[28]Ibid" 43, no. 3.

[29]See ibid., 55, no. 24; cf. Frend, Early Church, p. 100.

[30]Cornelius served as Bishop of Rome until June, 253, when he died in exile in
Centumcellae.
[31]Grant, Augustus to Constantine, p. 193; cf. Letters 44. Today, the little that is
known about Novatianus comes only from his enemies (Eusebius, History, VI, no.
43; cf. Letters 55). Even the circumstances of his death in 258 remain unclear. See
Letters 55, no. 5, in which Cyprian offered his own recollection of the situation and
Novatianus's more rigorous position.

[32]Letters 44 and 55, nos. 1 and 6; cf. Eusebius, History, VI, no. 43.

[33]Letters, 44-48, cf. 50 and 52, in which Novatus is named as having been one of
Novatianus's supporters in Rome. Although Novatianus did not receive the support
he had hoped for in Rome -- not to mention in North Africa -- his movement did
make substantial inroads in Spain and in the East, lasting until the end of the
seventh century.

[34]Ibid., 55, no. 29.

[35]The matter of Cyprian's support for the lapsed bishop Troilus, who had led a
large portion of his Church into apostasy (see Letters 55, nos. 11-12), illustrates this
point. Although Cyprian was against any ready readmittance of penitent lapsi to
communion, he supported Cornelius's reconciliation of Troilus. Cornelius's reason
was that Troilus had been able to convince many of these lapsi to return with him.
Further, these penitents made it clear that they would not return without Troilus,
even if as laity. For Cornelius, as for Cyprian, the supreme law of the Church must
always be salvation. For this, exceptions to lesser laws were, at least, tolerable.

[36]Cyprian, De unitate, chap. 3.

[37]See Cyprian, De lapsis, chaps. 18-19; also Letters 43, no. 5, and 65, no. 5.

[38]Cyprian, De unitate, chap. 10.

[39]Ibid., chap. 19.

[40]Ibid., chap. 20.

[41]Ibid., chap. 8.

[42]Ibid., chap. 6.

[43]Ibid., chap. 23.

[44]Ibid., chap. 3.

[45]Ibid., chap. 4; cf. chaps.13, 15, arid 17, in which Cyprian denied the efficacy of
all schismatic worship (chap. 13).

[46]Cyprian, De unitate, chap. 4: "[Although [Christ] assigns a like power to all the
Apostles, yet He founded a single Chair, thus establishing by His own authority the
source and hallmark of the [Church's] oneness. No doubt the others were ail that
Peter was, but a primacy is given to Peter, and it is [thus] made clear that there is
but one Church and one Chair. So too, even if they are all shepherds, we are shown
but one flock which is to be fed by all the Apostles in common accord."

[47]Ibid.

[48]Ibid., chap. 17.

[49]Ibid., chap. 4.

[50]Ibid., chap. 6.

[51]Bvenot, The Lapsed and The Unity of the Catholic Church, p. 104, n. 30;
emphasis in original.

[52]Letters 59, no. 14. As Clarke noted, while Cyprian did recognize a special
relationship of the bishop of Rome to Peter, this should not be read as his "phrasing
some dogmatic flattery, much less thinking of Rome's jurisdictional authority; he is
writing a skillful blend of indignant expostulation and knowing flattery" to Cornelius
regarding a matter in which he had a stake: the nonrecognition of two schismatic
bishops. "This is a task which at once expresses Cyprian's genuine respect for the
great traditions of the great see of Rome -- and which Cornelius of Rome would
much like to hear" (Clarke, Utters, vol. 3, pp. 257-258, n. 70).

[53]See Bvenot, "'Primatus Petro datur,'" pp. 34-35.

[54]See G. W. Clarke, tr. and ann., The Letters of Cyprian of Carthage, vol. 4: Letters
67-81, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation 47 (New
York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 139-140.

[55]See Letters 67.

[56]Letters 59, no. 14.

[57]Ibid., 68, no. 1.

[58]Ibid., 68, no. 2.

[59]Ibid., 68, no. 3.

[60]Ibid.

[61]Ibid., 68, no. 5.

[62]Cyprian, De unitate, chap. 23.

[63]Letters 69, no. 1.

[64]Stephen's views and the manner in which he entered into this controversy are
found in a letter (listed as Letter 75 in the Cyprianic corpus) to Cyprian from Bishop
Firmillian of Cappadocia, a staunch opponent of Stephen in this struggle. Cf. Letter
74, in which Cyprian responded to Stephen. Unfortunately, we do not have the
letter from Stephen that occasioned Cyprian's response. Therefore, I am working on
the assumption that, when offering his response, Cyprian provided his reader with
an accurate reflection of Stephen's mind.

[65]See Frend, Early Church, pp. 102-103; and Letters 74, nos. 4-5.

[66]Letters 70, no. 1.

[67]This is listed in the Cyprian corpus as Letter 72.

[68]Letters, 72, no. 3.

[69]Ibid., 72, no. 2.

[70]Ibid., 75.

[71]Ibid., 75, nos. 16-17.

[72]See Bvenot's introduction to De unitate in his The Lapsed and The Unity of the
Catholic Church, p. 7.

[73]Cyprian, De unitate, chap. 5.

[74]Published in Origins 22 (June 25, 1992): 108-112. All references to this text are
according to its own internal ordering, as was reproduced in the translation in
Origins.

[75]Ibid., no. 1.

[76]Ibid.

[77]Ibid., no. 8.

[78]Ibid.

[79]Ibid., no. 9; the first and third internal quotations in this passage are from
Christus Dominus, 6.3, and 11.1, respectively.

[80]For a thorough review of this debate, see Kilian McDonnell, "The

Ratzinger/Kasper Debate: The Universal Church and Local Churches," Theological
Studies 63 (June, 2002): 227-250.

[81] Walter Kasper, "On the Church: A Friendly Reply to Cardinal Ratzinger,"
America 184 (April 23-30,2001): 10.
[82]C.D.F., "Some Aspects," no. 8.

[83]See ibid.

[84]See ibid.

[85]Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the

Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, Ecclesiological and Canonical
Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion,
Conciliarity, and Authority, no. 32; available athttp://www.pro.urbe.it/dia-int/o-
rc/doc/e%5Fo-rc%5Fravenna.html.

[86]See n. 79, above, citing Christus Dominus, 11.1.

[87]LG, no. 23, citing Letters 66, no. 8, and 55, no. 24.

[88]LG, no. 23: "The individual bishops, however [in reference to the universal
primacy of the Roman pontiff], are the visible principle and foundation of unity in
their own particular churches, formed in the likeness of the universal church; in and
from these particular churches there exists the one unique catholic church."

[89]PA, chap. 3, nos. 2-4; cf. LG, no. 18, in which this teaching is affirmed.

[90]Code of Canon Law, tr. the Canon Law Society of America (Washington, DC:
Canon Law Society of America, 1983), canon 331

[91]Ibid., canon 333, 3.

[92]Jn. 21:15.

[93]See Hermann J. Pottmeyer, Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from

Vatican Councils I and II, tr. Matthew J. O'Connell, Ut Unum Sint: Studies in Papal
Primacy, A Herder and Herder Book (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1998), pp.
70-75.

[94]Code of Canon Law, canon 331.

[95]Kasper, "On the Church," p. 11; cf. Steps towards a Reunited Church, no. 3, in
which the North American Theological Commission noted the particular influence of
the events of the nineteenth century, when "absolutist forms of civil government
challenged the competence and even the right of Catholic institutions to teach and
care for their own people. In this context, the emphasis of the First Vatican Council's
document PA (1870) on the Catholic Church's ability to speak the truth about God's
self-revelation in a free and unapologetic way, and to find the criteria for judging
and formulating that truth within its own tradition, can be understood as a
reaffirmation of the apostolic vision of a Church called by Christ to teach and judge
through its own structures."
[96]See LG, nos. 18 ff.

[97]In Maurice Bvenot, "Primacy and Development," Heythrop Journal 9 (October,

1968): 400-413], Bvenot offered an alternative reading of this development,
positing that it is better understood as one of "pruning," whereby the Church has
gradually come to a clearer understanding of the primacy held by the Roman
pontiff. This is an intriguing proposal. Whatever its merits, it should be
acknowledged that this is not how the Roman Catholic Church's ecumenical
partners read the history of the papacy. It is precisely their reading of history with
which the Roman Catholic Church must contend in any dialogue on the primacy it
claims as belonging de jure divino to the Roman pontiff.

[98]See Joint Commission, Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences, no. 41; and
Steps towards a Reunited Church, no. 7a.

[99]LG, no. 23.

[100]Ibid., no. 18.

[101]This judgment has been made especially of the Synod of Bishops, as

established by Pope Paul VI in Apostolica sollicitude, and the degree of authority
accorded Episcopal Conferences by Pope John Paul II in Apostolos suos. See James
Coriden, "The Synod of Bishops: Episcopal Collegiality Still Seeks Adequate
Expression," The Jurist, vol. 64 (2004), pp. 116-136; and Francis A. Sullivan, "The
Teaching Authority of Episcopal Conferences," Theological Studies 63 (September,
2002): 472-493.

[102]See John Paul II, Ut unum sint (May 25, 1995), nos. 88 and 94 (hereafter, UUS);
see http://www.vatican.va/holy%5Ffather/john%5Fpaul
%5Fii/encyclicals/documents/hf%5Fjp-ii%5Fenc%5F25051995%5Fut-unum-sint
%5Fen.html.

[103]Steps towards a Reunited Church, no. 7c.

[104]See Joint Commission, Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences, Part II,

"The Threefold Actualization of Conciliarity and Authority." Such distinctions, in light
of the Church's conciliar nature and effective structure, would be precisely in line
with this agreed statement: "Primacy and conciliarity are mutually interdependent.
That is why primacy at the different levels of the life of the Church, local, regional
and universal, must always be considered in the context of conciliarity, and
conciliarity likewise in the context of primacy" (no. 43).

[105]See my remark in n. 97, above, on Bvenot's alternative reading of history in

[]"Primacy and Development."

[106]Pottmeyer, Towards a Papacy in Communion, p. 24.

[107]Ibid.

[108]UUS, nos. 95-96.

[109]For an example, see Stephen W. Sykes, "The Papacy and Power: An Anglican
Perspective," in Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., Church Unity and the
Papal Office: An Ecumenical Dialogue on John Paul II's Encyclical Ut Unum Sint
(Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001),
pp. 59-75.

[110]Bvenot, "Primacy and Development," p. 411, referencing Gustave Thils,

"Papaut et piscopat: Harmonie et Complmentarit," in Remigius Bumer and
Heimo Dolch, eds., Volk Gottes: Zum Kirchenverstndnis der katholischen,
evangelischen und anglikanischen Theologie -- Festgabe fr Josef Hfer (Freiburg,
Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1967), pp. 41-63.

[111]Steps towards a Reunited Church, no. 7.

~~~~~~~~

By Russel Murray

Russel Murray, O.F.M. (Roman Catholic), is director of the Franciscan Center for
Service and Advocacy at Siena College, Loudenville, NY, after teaching systematic
theology at the Washington (DC) Theological Union as an instructor (2007-08) and
assistant professor (2008-11). He was on the staff of St. Anthony Shrine in Boston,
1998-2000. He holds a B.A. from Fordham University, an M.Div. from Washington
Theological Union, and a Ph.D. in theology (2008) from the University of St.
Michael's College in Toronto. Ordained a deacon and a presbyter in the Order of
Friars Minor in 1998, he has been involved in several provincial ministries, including
being regional vocation director and member of the Evangelization Directorate of
the Holy Name Province, New York, and local spiritual assistant of the St. Thomas
Moore Fraternity, Arlington, VA. He has been a sacramental minister in a Silver
Spring, MD, parish and at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate
Conception in Washington, DC; a chaplain for the National Naval Medical Center in
Bethesda, MD; and a fundraiser for the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation
in Bethesda. He also held several ministerial internships in parishes in New York and
suburban Washington, DC, as well as in a parish in Novosibirsk, Russia (1996-97).
The Cord published his article on "Franciscan Ecumenism" in 2008, and New
Theology Review published '"In the Neighborhoods of Humanity': An Ecclesiology of
the Parish for a Time of Closings and Mergers" in 2009. His first J.E.S. article
(Summer, 2009) was "Mirror of Experience: Palamas and Bonaventure on the
Experience of God." He has lectured or led workshops in New York, Boston, and
suburban Philadelphia and Washington, DC. He has studied languages in
universities in the U.S., Canada, and Germany. A board member of the North
American Academy of Ecumenists, he has participated in International Ecumenical
Franciscan Encounters in Italy, the U.K., and the U.S.; did doctoral research in 2005
at Centra Pro Unione, in Rome; and participated in a Northern Virginia Muslim-
Catholic Dialogue in 2007. He was recently appointed to the O.F.M. Commission for
Dialogue (ecumenical, interreligious, and intercultural).

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