Cyprian of Carthage.

        When Tertullian was at the height of his powers, a boy was gro ing up in Carthage who was to do a great service to Latin Christianity in North Africa. His name was Cyprian.

        Caecilius (earlier called Thascius) Cyprianus was born, proably at Carthage, about A.D. 210, or soon after. His parents we neople of position and means, and he received a good education e was engaged in the teaching of rhetoric and oratory in Carthage when he came in contact with the Christian forces ther His discussion with representatives of the new faith, especiall with presbyter Caecilianus, led to his conversion, about A.D. 246. He entered into the work of the church with ardor and soon b came a presbyter. In 248-49, little more than two years after conversion, he was made bishop of Carthage in response to a popular demand on the part of the church.

        The ten years that followed were years of great stress and pe, for the Christians of Carthage and of great literary activity for Cyprian. Decius became emperor in A.D. 249 and soon after issu an edict which seems to have aimed at the complete extinction the Christian movement. It ushered in the first really general persecution of the church. Cyprian saved himself by leaving Carthage, probably warned by news from Rome of what was in the wind. He was severely criticized for doing so, but afterward d' fended his course as taken in the interest of the church as a whole.

        Throughout the Roman empire men and women were called upon to offer heathen sacrifice, before witnesses. Many complied and were given little papyrus slips recording that they had offered sacrifice to the gods, made libations, and tasted the offerings. Many such libelli, as they were called, have been found in Egypt.

        The reign of Decius was short; he was killed in battle wi the Goths m the Dobrudja in A.D. 251. There was a temporary lull in the persecution, and Cyprian, who from his place of conceal- ment had succeeded in keeping in touch with the church at Carthage by letters and messengers, was able to return.

        Important matters soon called for his attention. Through the months of Cyprian's concealment the bishop's chair in Rome had been vacant, and now it was claimed by two rival bishops, Cornelius and Novatian, the latter a man of especial culture and literary ability. They differed sharply on the treatment of the lapsed-those persons who had been driven by persecution to leave the church but now wished to return to it. Cornelius held that, upon establishing the sincerity of their repentance, they might be readmitted, but Novatian held they should not be readmitted at all. Cyprian seems at first to have favored the stricter policy, but he soon changed and, with characteristic vigor, took the side of Cornelius, who succeeded in establishing himself as bishop.

        Popular animosity against the Christians was roused again by the spread of the pestilence which had first appeared in the reign of Deans, and persecution revived. Cornelius, the new bishop of Rome, was banished and died, and Cyprian himself was threatened. He made himself useful in organizing aid for those stricken with the disease. The party of Novatian had separated from the Roman church to follow his stricter principles, but now some of them were returning, and the question arose: Should they again be baptized? Cyprian maintained that they should, but the new Roman bishop Stephen (254-57) declared it unnecessary and claimed the right as the successor of St. Peter to overrule his brother bishops.

        In the time of Cornelius, Cyprian had strongly maintained the unity of the church, which he found in the unity of the bishops, and although he fully recognized the historical importance of the Roman church, he boldly denied the inferences of superior authority which Stephen sought to draw from it. Stephen retorted by excommunicating the African bishops. This controversy was interrupted by the renewal of the persecution under the new emperor Valerian (A.D. 253-60), whose first edict, of A.D. 257, banished the higher clergy from their sees. Stephen died in August of that year, and in the same month Cyprian was banished to the African town of Curubis, some forty miles from Carthage.

        But the edict proved ineffective. The banished bishops simply organized new churches, in the places of their banishment, and a year later Valerian issued a new and much sterner edict. The substance of it is preserved in one of Cyprian's letters (Epist. 80): the various classes of Christians were threatened with varying degree of confiscation, degradation, slavery, and even death, but the penalty for the clergy was death. Cyprian learned that he was to be summoned to Utica for trial, or probably condemnation, and made his escape, for, as he wrote his congregation, he wished to suffer in Carthage. When the proconsul next visited Carthage, CYprian returned and was arrested. The following day, September 14, A.D. 258, he was tried, convicted, and beheaded.