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became the essential foundation of the Church. According to his theory of

the office, every bishop was the peer of every other bishop and had the

same duties to his diocese and to the Church as a whole as every other

bishop. No bishop had any more than a moral authority over any other. Only

the whole body of bishops, or the council, could bring anything more than

moral authority to bear upon an offending prelate. The constitution of the

council was not as yet defined. In several points the ecclesiastical

theories of Cyprian were not followed by the Church as a whole, notably

his opinion regarding heretical baptism (see § 47), but his main

contention as to the importance of the episcopate for the very existence

(esse), and not the mere welfare (bene esse), of the Church was

universally accepted. His theory of the equality of all bishops was a

survival of an earlier period, and represented little more than his

personal ideal. The following sections should also be consulted in this

connection.





Additional source material: Cyprian deals with the hierarchical

constitution in almost every epistle; see, however, especially the

following: 26:1 [33:1], 51:24 [55:24], 54:5 [59:5], 64:3 [3:3],

72:21 [73:21], 74:16 [75:16] (important for the testimony of

Firmilian as to the hierarchical ideas in the East). Serapion's

Prayer Book, trans. by J. Wordsworth, 1899.





(a) Cyprian, Epistula 68, 8 [=66]. (MSL, 4:418.)





Although a rebellious and arrogant multitude of those who will not obey

depart, yet the Church does not depart from Christ; and they are the

Church who are a people united to the priest, and the flock which adheres

to its pastor. Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church

and the Church in the bishop; and that if any one be not with the bishop,

he is not in the Church, and that those flatter themselves in vain who

creep in, not having peace with God's priests, and think that they

communicate secretly with some; while the Church, which is Catholic and

one, is not cut nor divided, but is indeed connected and bound together by

the cement of the priests who cohere with one another.





(b) Council of Carthage, A. D. 256. (MSL, 3:1092.)





The council of Carthage, in 256, was held, under the presidency of

Cyprian, to act on the question of baptism by heretics. See § 52.

Eighty-seven bishops were present. The full report of proceedings

is to be found in the works of Cyprian. See ANF, V, 565, and

Hefele, § 6. The theory of Cyprian which is here expressed is that

all bishops are equal and independent, as opposed to the Roman

position taken by Stephen, and that the individual bishop is

responsible only to God.





Cyprian said: It remains that upon this matter each of us should bring

forward what he thinks, judging no man, nor rejecting from the right of

communion, if he should think differently. For neither does any one of us

set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terrors does any

one compel his colleagues 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. But let us all wait for the judgment of our

Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has the power of advancing us in the

government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct here.





(c) Cyprian, Epistula 67:5. (MSL, 3:1064.)





The following epistle was written to clergy and people in Spain,

i.e., at Leon, Astorga, and Merida, in regard to the ordination

of two bishops, Sabinus and Felix, in place of Basilides and

Martial, who had lapsed in the persecution and had been deprived

of their sees. The passage illustrates the methods of election and

ordination of bishops, and the failure of Cyprian, with his theory

of the episcopate, to recognize in the see of Rome any

jurisdiction over other bishops. Its date appears to be about 257.





You must diligently observe and keep the practice delivered from divine

tradition and apostolic observance, which is also maintained among us, and

throughout almost all the provinces: that for the proper celebration of

ordinations all the neighboring bishops of the same province should

assemble with that people for which a prelate is ordained. And the bishops

should be chosen in the presence of the people, who have most fully known

the life of each one, and have looked into the doings of each one as

respects his manner of life. And this also, we see, was done by you in the

ordination of our colleague Sabinus; so that, by the suffrage of the whole

brotherhood, and by the sentence of the bishops who had assembled in their

presence, and who had written letters to you concerning him, the

episcopate was conferred upon him, and hands were imposed on him in the

place of Basilides. Neither can an ordination properly completed be

annulled, so that Basilides, after his crimes had been discovered and his

conscience made bare, even by his own confession, might go to Rome and

deceive Stephen, our colleague, who was placed at a distance and was

ignorant of what had been done, so as to bring it about that he might be

replaced unjustly in the episcopate from which he had been justly deposed.