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Cyprian

The bishop of Carthage who stayed through plague and persecution, then paid his own executioner.

Summary

This site quotes Cyprian 87 times across 31 books, and lists 0 works.

  • Lived died 258.
  • Quoted here most in Mark: 11 of 87.
Cyprian. Painted by Sailko. The file is marked cc by 4.0. This site's record does not give the artist's death year, which is what settles the painting's own rights. The file record

Cyprian

Lived
died 258
Tradition
Early Church

5 of 87 quotations

Own words

Quoted in full, because Cyprian died in 258 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.

This Hannah does in the first book of Kings [Samuel], portraying a type of the church, [she] prays to God not with a noisy petition but silently and modestly within the very recesses of her heart.

Treatise IV. On the Lord's Prayer 5, 258

The rest of the quotation

She spoke with a hidden prayer but with manifest faith. She did not speak with the voice but with the heart, because she knew that so the Lord hears, and she effectually obtained what she sought, because she asked with faith.

1 Samuel 1:13–14 Hannah was praying in her heart, and though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard. So Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, “How long will you be drunk? Put away your wine!” BSB

In the Gospel there is a proof of this mystery of unity, this inseparable bond of harmony, when the coat of the Lord Jesus Christ is not cut or rent at all.

Treatise I. On the Unity of the Church 7, 258

The rest of the quotation

The garment is received whole and the coat taken into possession unspoiled and undivided by those who cast lots for Christ's garment, asking who should put on Christ. Holy Scripture says of this, "But for the coat, because it was not sewn but woven from the top throughout, they said to each other: Let us not rend it but casts lots for it, whose it shall be."

1 Kings 11:31–32 and said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and I will give you ten tribes. But one tribe will remain for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel. BSB

Likewise at the setting of the sun and at the end of the day necessarily there must again be prayer.

Treatise IV. On the Lord's Prayer 35, 258

The rest of the quotation

For since Christ is the true Sun and the true Day, as the sun and the day of the world recede, when we pray and petition that the light come on us again, we pray for the coming of Christ to provide us with the grace of eternal light. Moreover, the Holy Spirit in the Psalms declares that Christ is called the Day. He says, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Psalms 118:22–23 The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the LORD, and it is marvelous in our eyes. BSB

These, doubtless, they imitate and follow, who, despising God's tradition, seek after strange doctrines, and bring in teachings of human appointment, whom the Lord rebukes and reproves in His Gospel, saying, "Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition."

Treatise I. On the Unity of the Church, 258

The rest of the quotation

This is a worse crime than that which the lapsed seem to have fallen into, who nevertheless, standing as penitents for their crime, beseech God with full satisfactions.

Mark 7:9 He went on to say, “You neatly set aside the command of God to maintain your own tradition. BSB

That faith is of advantage altogether, and that we can do as much as we believe. In Genesis: "And Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." Also in Isaiah: "And if ye do not believe, neither shall ye understand."

Treatise XII. Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews., 258

The rest of the quotation

Also in the Gospel according to Matthew: "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? " Also in the same place: "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Pass over from here to that place, and it shall pass over; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. BSB

Influence, on the record

The life, in order

The life told as one accountfrom this site's record

Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus was a wealthy man in Carthage — a teacher of rhetoric, a public figure, a landowner — until an old presbyter named Caecilianus led him to Christ around 246. He was baptized, sold estates to feed the poor, and within about two years the people of Carthage acclaimed him their bishop, over the objection of several senior presbyters who never forgave it. He had barely a year of quiet. In 250 the emperor Decius ordered every inhabitant of the empire to sacrifice and obtain a certificate proving it. Carthage broke. Christians queued at the temples in numbers that shocked their own clergy. Cyprian withdrew into hiding and governed the church by letter for over a year. He was attacked for it then and has been since. His own answer was that a hunted bishop in the open would have brought the mob down on the whole congregation, and that his letters — dozens of them survive — kept the church working. When the persecution eased, the hardest question in the third-century church landed on his desk: what to do with the lapsed. Confessors who had suffered were handing out letters of peace restoring the fallen wholesale. Rigorists said the fallen could never be restored at all. Cyprian took the middle and made it stick — restoration, but after penance, graded by what each person had actually done, and decided by the bishop in council, not by individuals. He wrote it up in On the Lapsed, and then wrote On the Unity of the Catholic Church to argue that a church that fragments over the question has already lost. In 252 plague swept North Africa. Bodies lay in the streets and pagan Carthage blamed the Christians. Cyprian gathered his congregation and organized them to nurse and bury the sick of the whole city — including the people who had been demanding their deaths. His biographer Pontius, who watched it, recorded it. He fought Stephen of Rome to a standstill over whether converts baptized by heretics needed rebaptism, holding his ground without breaking communion. Valerian's persecution took him in 257. Exiled first to Curubis, he was recalled, tried by the proconsul Galerius Maximus, and sentenced. The court record survives. On 14 September 258 he walked to the place of execution, took off his outer garment, knelt and prayed, bound his own eyes, and ordered twenty-five gold pieces given to the man who was about to behead him. Sources: Pontius, Life of Cyprian; the Acta Proconsularia of Cyprian; Cyprian, Letters, On the Lapsed, On the Unity of the Church (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5); Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2.

87 quotations across 31 books

Where this voice is quoted

Acts 1:7Treatise 12, Third Book, Section 89 (258)

Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.

The apostle says: "The day of the Lord shall so come as a thief in the night. When they shall say, Peace and security, then on them shall come sudden destruction."

Acts 1:14Treatise 1, Sections 24-25 (258)

With one accord they all continued in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.

"Blessed," says He, "are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the sons of God." [Matthew 5:9] It behooves the sons of God to be peacemakers, gentle in heart, simple in speech, agreeing in affection, faithfully linked to one another in the bonds of unanimity.

Acts 2:2Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews (258)

Suddenly a sound like a mighty rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

That the Holy Spirit has frequently appeared in fire. In Exodus: "And the whole of Mount Sinai smoked, because God had come down upon it in fire."

Acts 2:38Epistle LXXII (258)

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the…

For whereas in the Gospels, and in the epistles of the apostles, the name of Christ is alleged for the remission of sins; it is not in such a way as that the Son alone, without the Father, or against the Father, can be of…

Acts 4:11Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews (258)

This Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’

That Christ also is called a Stone. In Isaiah: "Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I place on the foundations of Sion a precious stone, elect, chief, a corner stone, honourable; and he who trusteth in Him shall not be confounded."

Acts 8:36Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews (258)

As they traveled along the road and came to some water, the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is there to prevent me from being baptized?”

That he who believes can immediately obtain (i.e., pardon and peace).]In the Acts of the Apostles: "Lo, here is water; what is there which hinders me from being baptized? Then said Philip, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest."

Acts 9:40Treatise VIII. On Works and Alms 6 (258)

Then Peter sent them all out of the room. He knelt down and prayed, and turning toward her body, he said, “Tabitha, get up!”

Neither, beloved brethren, are we so bringing forward these things, as that we should not prove what Raphael the angel said, by the testimony of the truth.

Acts 13:46Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews (258)

Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “It was necessary to speak the word of God to you first.

That the Gentiles should rather believe in Christ. In Genesis: "And the Lord God said unto Abraham, Go out from thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, and go into that land which I shall show thee: and I will make…

Acts 16:25Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews (258)

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

That we must never murmur, but bless God concerning all things that happen. In Job: "Say some word against the Lord, and die. But he, looking upon her, said, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women.