Ante-Nicene · c. 210 – 258
St. Cyprian of Carthage
Carthage, North Africa
Biography
Cyprian was a wealthy rhetorician who converted to Christianity and was quickly elected Bishop of Carthage. He led his church through the Decian persecution and the crisis over Christians who had lapsed under torture, insisting on both mercy and church discipline. He was ultimately beheaded during the persecution of Valerian, dying with the words 'Thanks be to God.'
Historical background
Writing during the mid-third-century schisms of Novatian and Felicissimus, Cyprian developed a robust theology of the unity of the episcopate and the Church as necessary for salvation, while corresponding closely — though not without disagreement — with the bishops of Rome.
Major writings
On the Unity of the Catholic Church
A treatise defending the unity of the episcopate founded on Peter and warning against schism.
Letters
Extensive correspondence on the lapsed controversy and church discipline.
Important teachings
Cyprian teaches that the episcopate is one, founded on Peter as its source of unity, so that no one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother. He also insists 'outside the Church there is no salvation,' understood as no salvation outside communion with the visible, unified Church.
Quotations
“He who does not have the Church for a mother cannot have God for a father.”
“On him [Peter] He builds the Church, and to him He gives the command to feed the sheep... yet a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church.”
“Outside the Church there is no salvation.”