Ignacio Zubillaga
DID TERTULLIAN REALLY EXIST? DID CYPRIAN? DID HIPPOLYTUS?
"But he has nothing on!" a little child cried out at last.
ANDERSEN, The Emperor’s New Clothes
02. THE NATURE OF APOLOGETIC LITERATURE
03. CHARACTERS OR INDIVIDUALS?
05. UNCOMPROMISING AND AMENABLE PRIESTS
06. THE SCHISM IN ROME. HIPPOLYTUS
07. THE SCHISM IN AFRICA. TERTULLIAN
08. DONATUS AGAINST THE ROMAN RULERS
13. THE VERSION OF THE ESTABLISHED CLERGY
17. THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY RECYCLED
18. CAECILIAN AGAINST MILTIADES
19. THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN
20. THE DOUBLE PROJECTION OF A SINGLE REALITY
PART II - 4th-CENTURY EVENTS IN ALLEGEDLY EARLIER PATRISTIC WRITINGS
After an initial stage where the fundamental writings were brought forth, Christians steadily increased their numbers and organized themselves as a widespread institution with growing influence in the Greco-Roman society. The emerging churches made their presence felt through the creation of apologetic treatises they attributed to outstanding elderly figures that the direct apostles of Jesus had initiated into their faith. More elaborate expositions from other notable writers that subsequently completed such works gradually shaped their theological views while exposing the errors of a large array of opponents.
Within western Christianity, the literary output of the African Church apparently sprang up with considerable vigour around 200 CE through the figure of Tertullian. Not only did he carefully delineate more precise notions of the divine but also advocated exacting patterns of behaviour and fought pagans and heretics alike with extraordinary zeal. About the same time, the stern presbyter Hippolytus was playing a similar role in the Roman Church. Both authors vehemently directed scathing attacks on currently established prelates whom they viewed as theoretically unsound, carnally minded individuals.
Two further prominent figures in Christian apologetics were simultaneously displayed against the ill will of Roman authorities after some decades of relative obscurity. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and Novatian, a Roman antipope, fought in opposing camps in a Church once again beset by internal strife. Following a decade punctuated with periods of hardship for the churches, the accession of Gallienus initiated a forty-years stage of peaceful understanding with hard-pressed pagan rulers in the middle of an extremely severe crisis that came to an end when it was fully surmounted at the beginning of the 4th century. An ensuing clampdown on the Christian religion was eased up after Diocletian’s resignation in 305. Seven years later, Constantine became the sole emperor in the western half of the Empire while the African rigorists under the spiritual leadership of Donatus the Great set up a schismatic church over a territory ranging from the Egyptian border to the Atlantic coast in ardent opposition to the hitherto recognized prelates.
The works of these celebrated ante-Nicene Fathers of the Church would never approach issues of strictly topical interest, nor enlarge our knowledge of historical events taking place when they were allegedly writing. Neither did they broach matters of truly personal nature in their epistolary output. They dealt with common subjects of abiding significance that were really directed to a general readership, their precise references being no more than mere illustrations pointing to wide-ranging conclusions.
Authors of religious works have long striven to enhance their status through the proclamation that they were actually written by illustrious, divinely inspired figures like Moses, David or Solomon, or at least by a minor character that appeared in some revered testimony of the past. Adam and Eve would not renounce to set forth explanations on the early times. A book that was spared at the Deluge might suddenly make an appearance. When an incomparable patriarch undertook the composition of a comprehensive chronicle of the chosen people, he could not fail to complete it with the record of his own death.
Instead of presenting its religious production anonymously, or dispersed in a number of present-day tracts whose innovations would only achieve a limited acceptance, an influential religious circle could opt to propose a venerable figure of outstanding merits as the only author of whatever writing they collectively endorsed over a period of time. Probably, the most accomplished member of the group defined the general features of most works and might leave on them his personal imprint. Others would collaborate in the elaboration of the writings, or even take over when necessary. The supposed early master could be extolled through more or less explicit biographical references in his own treatises, or else in complementary pieces. There emerged, accordingly, the glorious figure of a staunch confessor of the Faith, the thrilling report of a thaumaturge, or the grave dignity of the Christian sage who astonished the pagan philosophers with his learning. In any case, neither was the supposed writer exposed to penalties imposed by the civil authority nor to a well-grounded vilification by his opponents before the people, though he might be run down in parallel Christian works.
When Christianity was acknowledged as the Empire’s official religion, ecclesiastical circles or notables became more interested in defining their niche within the Church than in rallying against the State. Therefore, they largely preferred to present most of their works in their own name.
On the face of an apologetic output by no means composed of clear historical records, which is furthermore attributed to authors that were completely unknown beyond the Christian circles, it must be presumed either that such men were actual individuals who composed their tracts in the time they purported to live, or else that these writings were fabricated much later on to demonstrate how certain religious groups respectfully preserved the time-honoured teachings of a prominent leader of the Church. Though both suppositions are, in principle, equally hazardous, it is clear that an upholder of the latter is placed in a more demanding position than whoever would better be sheltered under the former.
It should be mentioned at this point that the successive appearance of apologetic writings from earlier times initially made them suspect to other priests for whom such procedures were a part of their common armoury, but they would be taken on unanimously as an ancient heritage once their novelty wore off a few decades later. Their wholehearted acceptance by the subsequent Christian tradition is no attestation of their genuineness.
The present essay will show that the abovementioned Fathers were no more than names representing the religious factions that fought bitterly one another for the control of the churches once Diocletian’s persecution was over. North African and Roman rigorists forcefully denounced an entrenched ecclesiastical body intent on preserving its former privileged position in Christianity, regardless of the reprehensible behaviour of many of its members in times of harassment. The former set out their views under the names of Tertullian and Hippolytus; the latter brandished the figure of Cyprian to uphold an Episcopal Church. The gap of fifty years between them is only apparent. The assailing clerics projected their representative characters one hundred years earlier on the reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. The hierarchical organization under attack would rather move back half a century to place its literary champion under the hostile dispositions of Decius and Valerian.
At the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity was an extensively implanted faith with a deep underground presence in Roman institutions. Churches wielded a separate power that was liable to come into conflict with the pagan rulings, their leaders considering themselves entitled, as the only interpreters of the divine will, to set out guidelines, religious or otherwise, to be observed by all their followers. Converts would be loyal subjects of the Roman emperors in obedience to their true masters, the bishops, who had hitherto counselled them to stay so. However, they aimed at the total eradication of all other religious beliefs, unsound variants, or philosophical schools, which were little more than ingenuities of the devil. Cathecumens were prompted to believe that a bottomless abyss separated them from those who would reject Christian teaching and remain unenlightened. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? ... Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" (2 Corinthians 6: 14-17).
In view of the unceasing expansion and prosperity of the Churches, the imperial authorities resolved that it was high time that the permanent source of trouble resulting from their downright incompatibility with the traditional customs were dealt with and stifled, once the borders had been made secure and a radical administrative reorganization enabling a much higher public expenditure successfully implemented. Christians would no longer be allowed to shy away from a public acknowledgement of the symbols that expressed a citizen’s loyalty to the Empire. Theirs was not just another option in their cultural diversity; pagans had either to defeat them or to surrender to their creed.
The efforts of the officials were initially directed to separate from high military or administrative posts whoever had been identified as a sympathiser of the thriving doctrine. Moreover, they encouraged the practice of ancient cults while concurrently attempting the discredit of Christianity. Churchmen countered such more or less covert policy with an intense campaign that stirred up their followers’ indignation and raised widespread malaise. Apologetic writings portrayed them as barbarously beleaguered only for the Name, after which it remained to be decided whether or not they should collaborate with rulers that were effectively serving the powers of evil. Reports of gallant soldiers that courageously defied military discipline suggested a possible course of action. Diocletian finally understood that he would not achieve his goals without resorting to violence.
In 303 CE, several carefully planned actions were launched against the Christians. Modelled on the provisions adopted by Decius in 250, they also took into account the existing regulations on sacrileges and lese-majesty offences. Ceremonial offerings to the tutelary divinities of the Empire then symbolized the political allegiance that is conveyed in our times through anthems and flags. By no means did they entail any renunciation to a previous system of religious commitments. No one addressed Juppiter Optimus Maximus or the goddess Roma in expectance of help in his personal problems. All that was required from the citizens was a public expression of reverence to the imperial rulers that any votary of Apollo, Isis, or Mithras would unreservedly perform.
But the Christian leaders cherished much higher aspirations. "Let governors be obedient to Caesar, soldiers to those that command them; deacons to the presbyters, as to high-priests; the presbyters, and deacons, and the rest of the clergy, together with all the people, and the soldiers, and the governors, and Caesar himself, to the bishop" (Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Philadelphians, 4). The blessed notables of the Church of Christ should not easily comply at the behest of adorers of false gods following a critical period in their mutual relations. Moreover, inasmuch as they were instrumental to their salvation converts ought to perceive that it was to them that they were bound to obey. Their loyalty to the civil authorities required their confirmation. Diocletian was for the time being the unquestioned master of the Roman Empire, but if any power vacuum should arrive the effective ecclesiastical net might well support whatever pretender was closer to its interests.
Once a census that included every person whose loyalty should be put to the test had been drawn, those enlisted were summoned for the performance of the sacrifice. Their refusal resulted in punishment and the loss of their former privileges. In addition, widespread attempts to resist the injunctions issued brought about the closure of places of worship along with the arrest of the priests as presumed instigators of rebellion.
In a turbulent atmosphere of heightened religious fervour, the first edict was torn apart in Nicomedia at the sight of the people in direct defiance to the imperial authority. Two successive fires shortly broke out in Diocletian’s palace. Caesar Galerius ostensibly abandoned the city after declaring that he would not be burnt alive by Christian arsonists. Ever increasing retaliatory measures culminated in a fourth edict that allowed for the application of capital punishment in cases of persistent disobedience.
War against a deeply rooted clerical structure involved an extensive social unrest that only an unchallenged autocrat could disregard. As the elderly Diocletian was returning from Rome, where he had attended the celebrations of his Vicennalia, he fell seriously ill. Having made up his mind to resign, he convinced his co-emperor Maximian that they should abdicate in favour of their Caesars. In May 305, the two new Augusti, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus, accepted Maximinus Daia and Severus as their respective subordinate colleagues. Hereditary rights having no place in the tetrarchical system, Constantius’ son, Constantine, and Maximian’s, Maxentius, were passed over. They immediately made ready to conspire with the enthusiastic support of a creed that had only been restrained from proselytising in the open. Their success was surprisingly quick: the following year Constantine was hailed as Augustus by his troops in Eboracum (York) upon his father’s death, while Maxentius prevailed over Severus in Rome. They both at once granted freedom of worship. The Christian religion was again accepted in the western half of the Empire.
The pressure brought to bear on ecclesiastical leaders was enough to intimidate a good number of them. Even the bishop of Rome, Marcellinus, handed over the Scriptures and liturgical objects. These prelates did not urge the faithful to fight on but resigned themselves to their current fate in expectation of better prospects. The existence of inventories of impounded items in the power of the North African clergy, altogether useless if there was no hope of getting them back, suggests that officials were attempting to place their religious activities under some control, just as Roman procurators had formerly kept in custody the liturgical vestments of the High Priest in Jerusalem. Church leaders were conscious that the Decian anti-Christian campaign spent its force in the course of a single year, and that Valerian’s came to a sudden end three years after it had been unleashed, when the Persians unexpectedly captured him. Rome had always tolerated a large number of beliefs, and it could be reasonably anticipated that some agreement might be reached sooner or later. In the meantime, Christians would pull through if they conducted their religious activities in a more subdued way, avoiding challenging attitudes that were only conducive to hardened repressive measures. Most of the more conspicuous clerics suspended their pastoral activities for the time being and withdrew.
But alongside this cautious policy adopted by an ecclesiastical hierarchy long established in positions that provided power and fortune to their incumbents, defying danger many fervent Christians were ready to fulfil the functions of the retired clergy. In addition to their renouncing worldly enticements, they eagerly awaited an opportunity to prove their loyalty to Christ, the first martyr. The confrontation of such men with the appeasing episcopacy that resumed office when the situation returned to normal was inevitable.
The victory of Maxentius over Severus, the legitimate Augustus in the West after the death of Constantius, was largely due to the military assistance of his father Maximian, who had only reluctantly abdicated and was anxious to be back in power. When the former co-emperor subsequently discovered that his son would not uphold his aspirations, he spitefully went over to Constantine, his son-in-law, in opposition to him. The Conference of Carnuntum clearly shows Maxentius’ isolation. In 308, the vicar of Africa, Domitius Alexander, took advantage of the crisis to proclaim himself a further Augustus; Maxentius was unable to crush his rebellion until 311. Beset by enemies, the usurper sought an understanding with the Roman church, which was irreconcilably divided into two factions. On either side of the sea, the rigorist camp incorporated the most brilliant personalities. Fiery theologians challenged a more accommodating dominant sector that encompassed the well-established administrators of the ecclesiastical apparatus.
An early conciliatory attempt culminated in the election of Marcellus in 308 as the Bishop of Rome, an undistinguished figure beneath whom Eusebius, a scheming cleric of Greek origin, resolutely supported the conservative sector against the stubborn reformists. Bitter disagreement between both sides resulted in bloody struggles in the city streets, whereupon Maxentius banished Marcellus to Sicily in punishment for his failure to hold in check men under his responsibility. The appointment of Eusebius as his successor compounded the problem. Similar clashes between his followers and those of Heraclius, the uncompromising leader, in the following year brought about the banishment of both in Sicily.
Finally, the schism came to an end in 311 with the election of a conciliatory bishop, Miltiades or Melchiades, who negotiated the support of a number of hardliners in exchange for some endorsement of their stance and their wholehearted reinstatement in the Church; only a reduced group of inflexible priests akin to Donatism was left out of the agreement. Maxentius promptly returned their confiscated properties to the widely accepted prelate.
The rigorist faction presented its religious output as the writings of Hippolytus, who considered himself as the true continuator of apostolic tradition in the Proemium to his Philosophumena, or Refutation of all Heresies. "We, as being their successors, and as participators in this grace, high-priesthood, and office of teaching, as well as being reputed guardians of the Church, must not be found deficient in vigilance, or disposed to suppress correct doctrine". The head of those who would not easily yield to the forces of evil, he, as opposed to Eusebius, led the genuine Church of God. Heraclius projected himself into the early decades of the preceding century, denouncing Zephyrinus and Callistus, two purportedly unworthy Roman bishops of the lenient trend whom he included among the enemies of the true faith.
He brought accusations against them on two counts. On the one hand, they were heretics; on the other, irresponsibly lax. At a time when Christian theology was still in process of development and the orthodox doctrine had not yet been agreed upon, he charged them with Modalism, "that the Son and the Father are the same". Scarcely inclined to doctrinal finesse, these prelates tried above all to emphasize the characteristically monotheistic nature of their creed. He additionally blamed them for their immoral behaviour. "Callistus (Eusebius) attempted to confirm this heresy – a man cunning in wickedness, and subtle where deceit was concerned, and who was impelled by restless ambition to mount the episcopal throne. Now this man moulded to his purpose Zephyrinus (Marcellus), an ignorant and illiterate individual, and one unskilled in ecclesiastical definitions. And inasmuch as Zephyrinus was accessible to bribes, and covetous, Callistus, by luring him through presents, and by illicit demands, was enabled to seduce him into whatever course of action he pleased. And so it was that Callistus succeeded in inducing Zephyrinus to create continually disturbances among brethren, while he himself took care subsequently, by knavish words, to attach both factions in good-will to himself" (Ref. 9.7).
Once he was named Bishop of Rome, "the impostor Callistus, having ventured on such opinions, established a school of theology in antagonism to the Church, adopting the foregoing system of instruction. And he first invented the device of conniving with men in regard of their indulgence in sensual pleasures, saying that all had their sins forgiven by himself (as the only legitimate bishop). For he who is in the habit of attending the congregation of any one else (Heraclius’ followers) and is called a Christian, should he commit any transgression, the sin, they say, is not reckoned unto him (he would not endorse my absolutions) ... Now such disciples as these passed over to these followers of Callistus, and served to crowd his school. This one propounded the opinion that, if a bishop was guilty of any sin, if even a sin unto death (had sacrificed or handed over the Scriptures), he ought not to be deposed. About the time of this man, bishops, priests, and deacons, who had been twice married, and thrice married, began to be allowed to retain their place among the clergy". While considering his prestigious opponent excommunicate, Eusebius had no qualms about taking in discreditable customers. "During the episcopate of this one, second baptism was for the first time presumptuously attempted by them (he rebaptized my former followers). These, then, are the practices and opinions which that most astonishing Callistus established, whose school continues, preserving its customs and tradition, not discerning with whom they ought to communicate, but indiscriminately offering communion to all". An immoral type that justly served sentence at a mine in Sardinia (Sicily), he soon managed to come back.
Hippolytus (Heraclius) was also banished to the same island. The sealing of the rift under Anterus, which Miltiades staged before Maxentius, included the mutual recognition of the opposite symbolic leaders and assortment of martyrs in the single register of a united church. Hippolytus’ invectives against Callistus in Philosophumena were such that a quick discovery that they patched things up between them with a hug in Sardinia was inconceivable. Not even Callistus’ (Eusebius’) immediate successor was acceptable in such role. Therefore, they proclaimed his reconciliation with Pontianus, a legitimate Roman bishop who was subsequently banished to the insula nociva. The mortal spoils of both martyrs were transported to Rome on the same day with great solemnity and joy.
Whereas tension abated in the Roman church with the readmission of most hardliners, this was not so in Africa, particularly in Numidia, where a fresh impetus of renewal overwhelmed the hierarchical organization, whose authority was called into question. Mensurius, the bishop of Carthage when Diocletian’s edicts were in force, denied having surrendered the sacred books, but the pagan authorities had evidently spared him. Like Eusebius in Rome, his archdeacon Caecilian strove to support the traditional clergy against those who demanded that they should be replaced by confessors who took a more belligerent course of action in those days.
When Mensurius died in 311, Caecilian secured his succession by hastening the proceedings. Mauretanian or Numidian prelates in bitter opposition to him could not possibly arrive in time. Bishop Secundus of Tigisis, Primate of Numidia, angrily summoned a synod of seventy bishops straightaway that invalidated the election. Striking a conciliatory pose, Caecilian then proposed a new ceremony where all electors would be present, provided that they confirmed him as the African Primate: "Lay hands on me afresh, and not on another". "Let him come here, and instead of laying on him, we will break his head in penance", was their recorded comment. Rigorists alleged that he had been unlawfully ordained by the traditor Felix of Aptunga, who gave over the Scriptures; on the other hand, still not satisfied with withholding his assistance to imprisoned confessors of the Faith, he hindered those who attempted to succour them. Thereupon, they named Majorinus bishop in Carthage of a Church of the Martyrs that obtained instant popularity, thus creating an abiding division in North African Christianity. Even though they only dissented in matters of discipline, each side considered the other an unsound doctrine apt to lead its followers to eternal damnation. Should they recover any former attendant of the opposing party, he was ostentatiously rebaptized as if he had been a pagan.
After his victory over Maxentius in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine was proclaimed in Rome the only Augustus in the West in October 312. While totally unconcerned about doctrinal discrepancies between clerics, he was deeply interested in the punctual arrival in Italy of the African grain, and in getting the enthusiastic recognition of a cooperative monolithic Christiandom. Caecilian and Majorinus immediately tried to win his favour. The Roman Church already pacified through the good offices of Miltiades, Constantine commissioned him as arbitrator in the African controversy. The emperor favoured the consolidation of the old ecclesiastical structure, which was only severely put to the test in Africa at that time, but his support should follow an apparently even-handed enquiry. Instead of getting the inconditional support of his Roman colleague, Caecilian was to appear in Rome to be investigated on equal terms with the rigorist faction, whose visible head had recently died.
At this point, there emerged the real spiritual leader of the invigorating North African reform, Donatus of Casae Nigrae, who had hitherto acted behind the scenes. A man of ardent temperament and exceptional eloquence, his sound knowledge of the profane sciences enhanced his accomplishments as a theologian. Ten African bishops from Caecilian’s church and another ten from the rigorists were convened to a hearing in the Lateran palace. Assisted by fifteen Italian prelates and the three Gallic bishops Constantine appointed in his name, Miltiades speedily found against the Donatists on October 2nd, 313. Donatus was excommunicated and retained in Rome for some time while the enforcement of the ruling was ineffectively attempted in Carthage. Fully aware at last that, with their strong popular support, the rigorist churchmen would resist him as resolutely as they did under Diocletian, Constantine tried to calm things down. He summoned a large synod that was to meet at Arelate (Arles) in August 314 to settle their dispute. Sylvester, the new bishop of Rome since January, evaded direct participation in the debates.
The opposition of North African Christianity to the heavy-handed measures of the First Tetrarchy was outstandingly expressed in treatises ascribed to Tertullian, who one hundred years earlier went through a similar situation. Although he had apparently lived in the reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla, whatever he wrote was fully applicable to current times. Unlike most other apologetic fabrications, his works bore the stamp of a powerful personality that was ill disposed to suffer its disfigurement beneath a biographical pretence. It would seem that their main author was no other than Donatus the Great, who poured over them his forensic skill and his pungent wit.
Sundry references loosely place Tertullian’s writings in the two first decades of the 3rd century. The evangelical allusion to the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1) gave him the cue for mentioning the same year of Septimius Severus (Adversus Marcionem, 1:15). "Has not Severus, that most resolute of rulers, but yesterday repealed the ridiculous Papian laws?" asked he in his most famous exposition (Apologeticum,4). It was the non-Christian army commanders Niger and Albinus that rose up against him, not the Christians (Apologeticum,35; Ad Scapulam,2). "This name of ours took its rise in the reign of Augustus; under Tiberius it was taught with all clearness and publicity ... Two hundred and fifty years, then, have not yet passed since our life began" (Ad Nationes,7). The apostolic teaching of Paul and John occurred some one hundred and sixty years earlier (De monogamia,3). Not long back, in 165 at the Olympic games, Peregrinus threw himself on the funeral pile (Ad martyras,4).
Tertullian’s fictional setting featured a long-established harmonious trinity of rulers at the head of the Roman Empire. "How large a portion of our orb has the present age reformed! how many cities has the triple power of our existing empire, either produced, or else augmented, or else restored! While God favours so many Augusti unitedly, how many populations have been transferred to other localities! how many peoples reduced! how many orders restored to their ancient splendour! how many barbarians baffled! In truth, our orb is the admirably cultivated estate of this empire; every aconite of hostility eradicated; and the cactus and bramble of clandestinely crafty familiarity wholly uptorn" (De pallio,2). He transplanted Diocletian’s system to another century with an adjustment in the number of sovereigns. Had he actually lived in those days, he would not have been ignorant of the fact that Geta was appointed Augustus just before his father’s death, shortly to be murdered by his elder brother Caracalla.
Possible historical references beyond those employed in building up the set are tenuous. However, the current death of many people of rank who supported or opposed a mere human being’s cause (Ad martyras,6), for example, may tentatively be suggested as reflecting the uprising of Domitius Alexander and its suppression by Volusianus.
His report of a remarkable darkening of the sun in broad daytime, which occurred in the city of Utica though not in Carthage (Ad Scapulam,3), on the contrary, is a useless indication. Obviously this is no solar eclipse but a wonder that may be bracketed with his accounts of periodical resurrections of the phoenix (De resurrectione mortuorum, 13), or the precocious babies of Colythus, who started speaking before they were a month old (De anima,20).
His most famous work, the Apologeticum, is a tirade against the tetrarchs, unnamed ‘rulers of the Roman Empire’ that harassed the Churches. Like Italy, Africa did not directly suffer the onslaught from the senior emperor. It was Maximianus Herculius that implemented the anti-Christian decrees in these territories. In point of fact, the author was not addressing his hostile opponents. Through copious streams of emotion-laden allegations presented with unequalled rhetorical skill, he was doing his utmost to arouse indignation among sympathizers of Christianity. Ashamed and scared, pagan rulers recoiled from Truth. Believers in Christ were refused the rights everyone else was entitled to in order to preclude their defence. He would not descend to consider any serious criticism against his faith. Pagans, he declared, divulged that they were devil-ridden, incestuous cannibals, when it was them that were guilty of such charges. "I shall not only refute the things which are objected to us, but I shall also retort them on the objectors, that in this way all may know that Christians are free from the very crimes they are so well aware prevail among themselves" (Apologeticum,4). They unjustly proclaimed them disloyal. They wrought falsehood from the faithful through their attempts to make them deny by means of a shameful sacrifice.
The author of Apologeticum portrayed a carefully planned, systematic campaign, comprising a preliminary census and a range of measures designed to act as a deterrent, from loss of rights to detention or exile. "You, who preside for the purpose of extorting truth, demand falsehood from us alone" (Ad Nationes,2). "We are punished if we persevere, and if we deny we are acquitted, because all the contention is about a name. Finally, why do you read out of your tablet-lists that such a man is a Christian?" (Apologeticum,2). Diehards might be demoted to humiliores. "We are excluded from the rights and privileges of Romans, because we do not worship the gods of Rome" (Apologeticum,24). "If there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God’s Church, they become the nurslings of their confession" (Apologeticum,39).
Christians patiently suffered an unmerited persecution. "With our hands thus stretched out and up to God, rend us with your iron claws, hang us up on crosses, wrap us in flames, take our heads from us with the sword, let loose the wild beasts on us –the very attitude of a Christian praying is one of preparation for all punishment. Let this, good rulers, be your work: wring from us the soul, beseeching God on the emperor’s behalf. Upon the truth of God, and devotion to His name, put the brand of crime" (Apologeticum,30).
However, the oppressed could strike back if they wished to. "We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope" (Apologeticum,39). "If we desired, indeed, to act the part of open enemies, not merely of secret avengers, would there be any lacking in strength, whether of numbers or resources? ... We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you –cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum- we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods. For what wars should we not be fit, not eager, even with unequal forces, we who so willingly yield ourselves to the sword, if in our religion it were not counted better to be slain than to slay? Without arms even, and raising no insurrectionary banner, but simply in enmity to you, we could carry on the contest with you by an ill-willed severance alone" (Apologeticum,37). It is not an incipient Christianity attempting to make its way around 200 CE that becomes apparent in these citations, but a powerful, all-pervasive ecclesiastical organization only a few years away from its victory over the rival creeds.
The terrible persecution that the author tacitly laid at Septimius Severus’ door is fictitious. Since the early days, accounts of martyrdoms fuelled their perception of themselves as chosen ones that should close ranks and keep their distance from vicious opponents. Cohesion within the group, which circumcision and other Jewish practices had formerly secured on a racial basis, had to be nurtured through the renewed presentation of their singular condition as noble victims in an iniquitous world. "They love all men and are persecuted by all" (Mathetes to Diogenetus). Corrupt and criminal, non-converts relentlessly sought their ruin. Stockpiling was such that, in the end, all emperors from Nero to Diocletian with the possible exception of Severus Alexander were tainted with the high-handed execution of every bishop of Rome.
In order to uphold the historicity of a persecution only ‘Tertullian’ knows about, it has been contended that its enforcement was only local. While reluctantly conceding the existence of Roman law, high officials purportedly acted in practice as they pleased. In a chaotically organized empire, at his discretion a provincial governor might either throw the entire territory under his surveillance in turmoil or else, as did Pliny to Trajan, ask the emperor’s permission even to repair the sewerage of a remote city. Whatever course would pass unnoticed.
After an initial stage where the incomparable apologist attained great prestige in the Church for his impassioned defence of the Christian faith against the outrages of the Roman sovereigns, the cessation of repressive measures around 306, with the consequent return of exiled, fugitive, or imprisoned priests, created an altogether different situation. Confirmation of clerics in positions of responsibility should necessarily take into account commendable or reprehensible past behaviour. Donatus prompted a stringent disciplinary reform that would re-establish the atmosphere of fervent religiousness that prevailed in the early days. The Holy Ghost had not gone mute since the time of the apostles. God still poured his gifts over spiritual men and women who were ready to recognize His encouragement and be led on the way to salvation. He, indeed, did not challenge whatever had been handed down by the apostolic tradition. The radical difference consisted in the attitude of mind of the believers whom the Paraclete guided towards the divine, their renouncement of worldly enticements and their unwavering readiness for sacrifice while they awaited an eternal reward.
On the other hand, Eusebius was the defender of an ecclesiastical caste consolidated afresh in its former posts, from which it channelled the efforts of the Christian flock and administered its economic contributions. His supporters surely did not want any further strain in the austerity of their lives, nor an inquest into their past deeds and ordination, nor being passed over by more spiritually-gifted clerics. Donatus looked upon him as his sworn enemy, even worse than Caecilian, since he was instrumental in frustrating his efforts to obtain the Roman endorsement that would have given his movement of renewal a universal scope. The grave Numidian was no philosopher in pursuit of truths that might be ascertained after an open-minded analysis of their manifold aspects, but a fierce antagonist who was always ready to pounce on his opponents, ruin their reputation, and crush them. Just as Heraclius, he went out of his way to present Eusebius as a heretic and an immoral individual.
Under the name of Hippolytus, the former berated Eusebius for his inadequate distinction between Father and Son. "Callistus alleges that the Logos Himself is the Son, and that Himself is the Father; and that though denominated by a different title, yet that in reality He is one indivisible spirit" (Modalism). "And in this way Callistus contends that the Father suffered along with the Son" (Patripassianism). In fact, he did not intend to object to any previously established doctrine; Christian dogma was then painfully being worked out. Circumventing profound theoretical explanations, he simply understood that the main feature that told them apart from the pagan cults, monotheism, should be emphasized in no uncertain terms. Two brilliant treatise-writers, Heraclius and Donatus drew embarrassing consequences from his insufficiently meditated words and then presented them as if they were his explicit declarations. Since Eusebius retaliated in kind, the rank and file Christians contemplated with astonishment how church leaders who posited two separate divinities wrestled with others that depicted a humiliated God Almighty who had been slain at the Golgotha.
According to Hippolytus, his shrewd opponent accused someone appearing under the name of Sabellius of teaching unsound doctrines, when he was the worse one of the two. "But Callistus perverted Sabellius himself, and this too, though he had the ability of rectifying the heretic’s error. For –at any time- during our admonition Sabellius did not evince obduracy; but as long as he continued alone with Callistus he was wrought upon to relapse". "After the death of Zephyrinus (Marcellus), supposing that he had obtained the position after which he so eagerly pursued (once he was appointed bishop of Rome), he excommunicated Sabellius, as not entertaining orthodox opinions. He acted thus from apprehension of me, and imagining that he could in this manner obliterate the charge against him among the churches, as if he did not entertain strange opinions. And having even venom imbedded in his heart, and forming no correct opinion on any subject ..." (Ref.9.7).
Certain Christian writers strove to present their creed before the cultivated Romans that progressively joined the Church in intellectually satisfying ways that incorporated widely accepted ingredients from the Greek masters. In his Apology, Justin Martyr endorsed the belief in a world that God had modelled out of a co-eternal matter, as Plato imperfectly described in his Timaeus (A1.59). But in the beginning of the 4th century, subsequent theological refinements had already outdated such early efforts. However, the Roman church, effectively under Eusebius’ rule, would not expose as objectionable a recently appeared treatise that acknowledged the existence of such everlasting material substratum. Hippolytus placed its purported author, Hermogenes, among the heretics right away (Ref.8.17), and so did Tertullian (De praescriptione haereticorum,30;33). Moreover, the latter thenceforth attacked Eusebius under that appellation in several works.
The nickname perfectly suited his loathsome rival, who "failed in cleaving to the rule of faith" (Adversus Hermogenem,1), like his namesake the disloyal cleric who would not stick to Paul’s teaching: "That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes" (2 Timothy 1:14-15). Rejecting the divine inspiration, this disgraceful Greek priest had excluded himself from the communion of the Saints. "He is, in short, a man living in the world at the present time; by his very nature a heretic, and turbulent withal, who mistakes loquacity for eloquence, and supposes impudence to be firmness, and judges it to be the duty of a good conscience to speak ill of individuals" (Adversus Hermogenem,1).
Recalling a well-known dialogue between Socrates, Cratylus and Hermogenes, where the former observed that bad painters imitated reality in a distorted way, Donatus went on to say that he replaced the Holy Scriptures with "his own colourable pretences" (AH33). Hardly satisfied with a global condemnation of his strange opinions, he eagerly laboured the point. Following his submission that God had not shaped whatever existed out of nothing, "our bad painter has coloured this his primary shade absolutely without any light" (AH2). He falsified the true doctrine. "He is a thorough adulterer, both doctrinally and carnally, since he is rank indeed with the contagion of your marriage-hacks" (AH1). "(He is) wont to marry more women than he paints" (De monogamia,16). He further denied God’s creation of individual souls (De anima,3;11). "It must be admitted, however, that Hermogenes, by describing for Matter a condition like his own –irregular, confused, turbulent, of a doubtful and precipitate and fervid impulse- has displayed a specimen of his own art, and painted his own portrait" (AH45).
The activities of a carnal painter who obstinately posited questionable tenets would have been inconsequential even if he committed them to writing. A thousand times more disturbing, Porphyry’s attack on Christianity only deserved his contempt. What aroused the fiery apologist’s anger was that Hermogenes’ privileged position in the Roman church enabled him to block his way. He called him doctrinally adulterous because, with his resolute opposition, he hindered his disciplinary reform and seriously thwarted its spread on the other side of the sea.
Tertullian’s refutations were not confined to the doctrines of alien groups or individuals, or to the departures of Christian circles that had taken issue with widely accepted traditions of the Church, but exposed with particular commitment the supposedly heretical stance of prominent ecclesiastical leaders.
God still instructed certain high-principled men –like himself- to act in the world as His prophets, he declared. Such chosen ones should rebuke those unworthy clerics who had fallen into errors or relaxed in their behaviour. "It was fit and proper, therefore, that the Holy Ghost should no longer withhold the effusions of His gracious light upon these inspired writings, in order that they might be able to disseminate the seeds of truth with no admixture of heretical subtleties, and pluck out from it their tares. He has accordingly now dispersed all the perplexities of the past, and their self-chosen allegories and parables, by the open and perspicuous explanation of the entire mystery, through the New Prophecy (recorded in my treatises), which descends in copious streams from the Paraclete" (De resurrectione mortuorum,63).
Those who are ready to receive the enlightenment of the Holy Ghost, "us, however, whom the recognition of spiritual gifts entitles to be deservedly called Spiritual", stand in stark contrast to men from the accommodating faction of the Church. "But to the Psychics, since they receive not the Spirit, the things which are the Spirit’s are not pleasing. Thus, so long as the things which are the Spirit’s please them not, the things which are of the flesh will please, as being the contraries of the Spirit" (De monogamia,1). Far from opposing the New Prophecies because they overturned any particular rule of faith, Psychics pronounced them pseudo-prophecies from their alarm at the requirements of more stringent observances. Theirs was an animal faith, "as prone to manifold feeding as to manifold marrying –so that it deservedly accuses the spiritual discipline, which according to its ability opposes it" (De jejunio,1). Furthermore, they were inimical to taking risks for Christ’s sake. "It is plain that as they have rejected the prophecies of the Holy Spirit, they are also purposing the refusal of martyrdom" (De corona,1).
The carnal clergy called into question his right to put out regulations on disciplinary matters. However, "it is a customary practice for the bishops withal to issue mandates ... from some particular cause of ecclesiastical solicitudes ... how is it that in our case you set a brand upon the very unity also of our fastings ... The Holy Spirit, when He was preaching in whatsoever lands He chose and through whomsoever He chose was wont ... in his character of Paraclete –that is, Advocate for the purpose of winning over the Judge by prayers- to issue mandates for observances of this nature; for instance, at the present time, with the view of practising the discipline of sobriety and abstinence" (De jejunio,11).
‘Psychics’ seemed to think that the Paraclete had gone dumb since the time of the apostles. They had been "reigning in wealth and satiety". Unprepared for the defence of their Faith, they forsook their responsibilities. "But you again set up boundary-posts to God, as with regard to grace, so with regard to discipline ... and you thus deny that He still continues to impose duties ... It remains for you to banish him wholly, being, as He is, so far lies in you, so otiose" (De jejunio,11).
Nevertheless, the presence of the divine had not exclusively become apparent in the past. "We acknowledge spiritual charismata, or gifts, we too have merited the attainment of the prophetic gift. We have now amongst us a sister whose lot it has been to be favoured with sundry gifts of revelations, which she experiences in the Spirit by ecstatic vision" (De anima,9). Moreover, in the 2nd century some Cataphrygian seers, to wit, Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, palpably felt themselves in the immediacy of God. Tertullian’s treatise on ecstasy has not been preserved, but a comment on such spiritual encounters is recorded in Adversus Marcionem, regarding Peter’s confusion at the Transfiguration. "Was (Peter’s ignorance) on the principle which we maintain in the cause of the New Prophecy, that to grace rapture is incident, for when a man is rapt in the Spirit, especially when he beholds the glory of God, or when God speaks through him, he necessarily loses his sensation, because he is overshadowed with the power of God –a point concerning which there is a question between us and the carnally-minded" (AM4.22).
Just like Heraclius, Donatus was filled with indignation at Eusebius’ predisposition to laxity, which granted him an increasing audience. ‘The bishop of bishops’ rashly issued an edict remitting the sins both of adultery and fornication. Then he repudiated "the fellowship of sentiment also which I myself formerly maintained with them (the Psychics) ... I blush not at an error which I have ceased to hold, because I am delighted at having ceased to hold it" (De pudicitia,1). But his breaking-off with mainstream Christianity by no means entailed his endorsement of any religious outlook other than his own. Ecstatic visionaries were useful for him inasmuch as they made his inspiration as God’s new prophet more plausible. They had nothing to teach him. No one knew whether they ever preached any coherent doctrine at all.
Donatus harshly berated the spineless behaviour of carnal priests in the difficult times. Leaving the flock on its own, they made themselves scarce or else meekly settled for a comfortable exile. "When persons in authority themselves I mean the very deacons, and presbyters, and bishops- take to flight, how will a layman be able to see with what view it was said, Flee from city to city? Thus, too, with the leaders turning their backs, who of the common rank will hope to persuade men to stand firm in the battle?" (De fuga in persecutione,10). "All you need for your protection is to have both faith and wisdom ... If you cannot assemble by day, you have the night, the light of Christ luminous against its darkness. You cannot run about them one after another. Be content with a church of threes" (De fuga,14).
The Roman priesthood depicted Eusebius as a former martyr, when he had been justly banished in punishment for his dishonourable deeds (Hippolytus, Ref.9.7). As regards Caecilian, the vindication and sustained enhancement of the figure of his controversial predecessor in the see during the reigns of Decius, Gallus, and Valerian, strengthened his position. But instead of standing up to them, Tertullian contended, the bishop Cyprianus abandoned his duties as a Christian leader to lead the quiet life of an exile at Curubis. Psychics should neither judge Callistus nor him entitled to confer grace, and even less rely on their impaired prestige to issue directions for the faithful. "The Church, it is true, will forgive sins; but it will be the Church of the Spirit, by means of spiritual men; not the Church which consists of a number of bishops" (De pudicitia,21).
Such objectionable ministers could not grant forgiveness. On the contrary, it was them that should publicly entreat God’s mercy in front of the upstanding brethren, not supplicating for their sins in scarlet and purple but unwashed, sordidly attired, and estranged from gladness. "Exomologesis is a discipline for man’s prostration and humiliation, enjoining a demeanour calculated to move mercy. With regard also to the very dress and food, it commands the penitent to lie in sackcloth and ashes, to cover his body in mourning ... to bow before the (rightful) presbyters, and kneel to God’s dear ones; to enjoin on all the brethren to be ambassadors to bear his deprecatory supplication before God" (De paenitentia,9). That procedure would keep everlasting fire away from them, but it is unlikely that Tertullian thought it a remedy to recover prominent ecclesiastical posts.
Carnal clergy shamelessly paraded false martyrs before their audiences. "But you go so far as to lavish this power (of remitting sins) upon martyrs withal! No sooner has anyone (Cyprian), acting on a preconceived arrangement, put on the bonds –bonds, moreover, which, in the nominal custody now in vogue, are soft ones- than adulterers beset him, fornicators gain access to him; instantly prayers echo around him; instantly pools of tears from the eyes of all the polluted surround him ... Others betake them to the mines, and return, in the character of communicants, from thence (Eusebius-Callistus), where by this time another ‘martyrdom’ is necessary for sins committed after ‘martyrdom’. Well, who on earth and in the flesh is faultless? What ‘martyr’ continues to be an inhabitant of the world supplicating? pence in hand? ... Let it suffice to the (self-styled) martyr to have purged his own sins ... Who has redeemed another’s death by his own, but the Son of God alone?" (De pudicitia,22).
Some celebrated martyrs of false brilliance dreaded the bodily inconveniences. "Let him (the Psychic) furthermore seek out baths of more genial temperature in some gardened or seaside retreat; let him enlarge his expenses; let him carefully seek the rarest delicacy of fatted fowls ... (unlike contestants for consulship or praetorship) voluntarily exiled from the felicity of freedom and festivity: and all that for the sake of the fleeting joy of a single year!" (De paenitentia,11). Cyprian spent a comfortable exile in Curubis (Korbous, not Korba), relaxing in his garden and making good use of its renowned springs of thermal waters, the Aquae Calidae Carpitanae, which contributed to keep his obesity in check.
A callous accusation in On fasting that bolsters the foregoing broad hint in On penitence suggests that these tracts shortly succeeded and preceded Donatus’ breaking-off with Caecilian respectively. "Plainly your habit is to furnish cookshops in the prisons to untrustworthy martyrs, for fear they should miss their accustomed usages, grow weary of life, and be stumbled at the novel discipline of abstinence; a discipline which not even the well-known Pristinus (Cyprianus) –your martyr, no Christian martyr- had ever come in contact with: he whom, stuffed as he had long been, thanks to the facilities afforded by the ‘free custody’ now in vogue and under an obligation, I suppose, to all the baths –as if they were better than baptism!- and to all the retreats of voluptuousness –as if they were more worth than those of life eternal!- not to be willing to die, on the very last day of trial, at high noon, you pre-medicated with drugged wine as an antidote, and so completely enervated, that on being tickled –for his intoxication made it feel like tickling- with a few claws, he was unable any more to make answer to the presiding officer interrogating him whom he confessed to be Lord; and being now put on the rack for this silence, when he could utter nothing but hiccoughs and belchings, died on the very act of apostasy! This is why they who preach sobriety are ‘false prophets’, this is why they who practise it are ‘heretics’!" (De ieiunio,12).
The severely rebuked ecclesiastical hierarchy counterattacked with a campaign that was aimed at demolishing the author’s credibility. Far from deriving his teaching from God’s inspiration, the conceited prophet based his novelties on the insane proclamations of some 2nd-century Phrygian mystics. Although reliable information about them amounted to almost nil, there could be no doubt that their disrepute would bring about Tertullian’s. We can reconstruct what the Eusebians wrote on them from Jerome’s reviews in De viris illustribus. Some treatise ascribed to an exceedingly-talented Apollonius, in particular, asserted that Montanus and his mad prophetesses dyed their hair, stained their eyelids with antimony, adorned themselves with fine garments and precious stones, played with dice, accepted usury, and were eventually hanged (DVI.40). The bleak austerity that Tertullian was attempting to enforce on the Christians could hardly have stood in sharper contrast.
If Donatus had initially cherished some hope of obtaining the endorsement of bishop Marcellus in Rome to his spiritual renewal, Eusebius’ defamatory crusade forever thwarted his chances. Both parties hurled the harshest deprecations at each other. ‘Enthralled to voluptuousness’ and ‘bursting with gluttony’ (since they were averse to his disciplinary reform), the carnally-minded fought the shady dealings of a presbyter who, after forsaking the Catholic Church (through his rejection of Caecilian), supported the rambling utterances of a corrupted gang (seeing that he mentioned them in some of his works).
Donatus directed scathing attacks on Eusebius once again in one of his last works under the name of Tertullian. He no longer dubbed him Hermogenes but Praxeas, "a pretender of yesterday". A turbulent and unprincipled Patripatrissian, he would undertake whatever course of action might be useful for him. Even though he viciously slandered the Paraclete’s messengers, Heraclius had the edge over him in the end, since the accurate doctrine of Hippolytus was widely acclaimed under Miltiades.
"He (Praxeas) says that the Father himself came down into the Virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ ... For he was the first to import from Asia this kind of heretical depravity, a man in other respects of restless disposition, and above all inflated with the pride of confessorship simply and solely because he had to bear for a short time the annoyance of a prison (which Hippolytus had previously denounced, referring to him as Callistus); on which occasion, even if he had given his body to be burned, it would have profited him nothing, not having the love of God, whose very gifts he has resisted and destroyed. For after the Bishop of Rome (Marcellus) had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla (accepted in principle the spiritual trend within the Church) ... he (Eusebius), by importunately urging false accusations against the prophets themselves and their churches, and insisting on the authority of the bishop’s predecessors in the see, compelled him to recall the pacific letter which he had issued, as well as to desist from his purpose of acknowledging the said gifts. By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away (the New) Prophecy, and he brought in heresy (Patripassianism); he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father. Praxeas’ tares had been moreover sown, and had produced their fruit here also (in Africa), while many were asleep in their simplicity of doctrine; but these tares actually seemed to have been plucked up, having been discovered and exposed by him whose agency God was pleased to employ (Heraclius writing as Hippolytus). Indeed Praxeas (Eusebius as Callistus) had deliberately resumed his old true faith, teaching it after his renunciation of error (which could be surmised from the staged reconciliation of both banished leaders under Miltiades, who could thereupon appear before Maxentius as the unquestionable bishop of Rome), and there is his own handwriting in evidence remaining among the carnally-minded, in whose society the transaction then took place (recalcitrant rigorists were left out); afterwards nothing was heard of him (Eusebius disappeared in 310). We indeed, on our part, subsequently withdrew from the carnally-minded on our acknowledgement and maintenance of the Paraclete (created a Church of the Martyrs in 312). But the tares of Praxeas had then everywhere shaken out their seed (Eusebians try to turn Constantine against us)" (Adversus Praxean,1).
The clerics who reappeared unharmed to resume their former positions in the Churches under more tolerant civil administrators had to justify themselves before those that courageously confronted the risks and visibly suffered the repression. Neither had they burnt incense nor surrendered the Scriptures, most of them explained. They escaped punishment without complying with the edicts by means of false certificates that could be obtained through bribery. Unsuspecting magistrates impounded non-sacred, illegible or even heretical works. They were not sought after on account of the negligence of those who implemented the measures. In addition to that, pagans often proclaimed that the Christians had yielded when in fact they had bravely refused. "Thus one, while those around pressed him on by force and dragged him to the abominable and impure sacrifices, was dismissed as if he had sacrificed, though he had not. Another, though he had not approached at all, nor touched any polluted thing, when others said that he had sacrificed, went away, bearing the accusation in silence" (Eusebius of Caesarea, EH8.3).
Caecilianists vindicated the figure of Cyprian through the fabrication of a comprehensive correspondence that included a well-arranged collection of his letters along with several replies and messages of appreciation, support, or requesting his advice. A prolonged stage during which Cyprian, though in hiding, effectively ruled the African Church was thereby made apparent. This preceded or better still substituted his spell in Curubis as an exile, which came to an end with his martyrdom. Consequently, far from having enjoyed an idle retirement at a seaside resort, he relentlessly kept a close watch on his flock. A separate testimony proved that he subsequently died as a glorious confessor of Christ.
But, above all, the Epistles of Cyprian reworked the nature of the conflict. Caecilianists would not come out as defendants that denied the charges their enemies brought against them. Others were the lapsed and, as the only legitimate Church, it was them –their illustrious predecessor- that decided whether their reprehensible behaviour was to be forgiven or not.
As they had been placed in different ages, Tertullian and Cyprian could not openly confront one another. In the wake of Heraclius and Eusebius, a Latin divinely-inspired prophet that took over from the Greek Hippolytus henceforth enlightened the true Christians with his treatises. Roman rigorists that were left out of the agreement aligned themselves with Donatus to extol the figure of Novatian, an upright prelate who firmly opposed Peter’s undignified successor. A leader of unlimited import, he became the widely venerated reference in a disciplinary reform that spread all over the Empire but, insofar as he stood up to the bishop Caecilian eulogized in order to consolidate his position, he appeared as well as the African Novatus, thus representing the true Church of Christ that withstood the attacks of Decius and Valerian at both sides of the sea. His two aspects were long mingled in the works of relevant ecclesiastical writers, who would generally describe the schismatic as followers of a Roman Novatus.
In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesarea recorded in broad terms the struggles between factions that followed the official endorsement of Christianity. "On account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth, and envied and reviled each other, and were almost, as it were, taking up arms against one another, rulers assailing rulers with words like spears ... monstrous hypocrisy and dissimulation rising to the greatest height of wickedness ... and those esteemed our shepherds, casting aside the bond of piety, were excited to conflicts with one another, and did nothing else than heap up strife and threats and jealousy and enmity and hatred towards each other, like tyrants eagerly endeavouring to assert their power" (EH10.1). He would rather "introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity" (EH10.2). Avoiding taking any stance on Donatism, he indirectly recorded the African controversy through uncommented transcriptions of Constantine’s instructions ordering trials in Rome and Arles, or sending funds to Caecilian. While showing appreciation for Tertullian’s brilliant Apologeticum, he strongly condemned the Montanist reptiles and silenced the rest of his works. Novatus had been a presbyter of the Church of Rome who adopted a brother-hating and inhuman attitude. That most illustrious man, that dogmatist, that defender of the doctrine of the Church, compelled three inebriated bishops by force to confer the episcopate on him. Satan had dwelt in him for a long time. At last delivered by the exorcists, as he subsequently fell into a severe sickness he was improperly baptized. Consequently, how could he receive the Holy Spirit? The same Novatus that disturbed the Roman believers was unexpectedly referred to as "Novatian, who has sundered the Church and drawn some of the brethren into impiety and blasphemy, and has introduced impious teaching concerning God, and has calumniated our most compassionate Lord Jesus Christ as unmerciful" (EH7.8).
Socrates Scholasticus reported that the Novatians were followers of a presbyter of the Roman Church, Novatus, who seceded because Cornelius had received into communion believers who had sacrificed during the persecution of Decius. He exhorted them to repentance, but would "leave the pardoning of their offence to God, who has the power to forgive all sin". Therefore, they would no longer be entitled to clerical positions on earth. Novatus demanded a strict discipline and "he himself indeed afterwards suffered martyrdom in the reign of Valerian" (EH4.28).
Hermias Sozomen described a bloody attack on the Novatians as follows: "Macedonius, having been apprised that the majority of these people were followers of Novatus, and the ecclesiastical power was not of itself sufficiently strong to expel them, persuaded the emperor to send four cohorts against them. For he imagined that men who are unaccustomed to arms, on the first appearance of soldiers, be seized with terror, and conform to his sentiments. But it happened otherwise ... many of the Paphlagonians fell, but nearly all the soldiers were slain" (EH4.21).
Among other Christian authors, Jerome considered that such confusion should be settled with the admission that Novatus and Novatian were without doubt two different persons. By that time, however, the Epistles of Cyprian could only be brought into line through slight adjustments, since they were extensively divulged writings. The name of the awesome schismatic was predominantly rendered as Novatian and, on some exceptional occasions, the two variants stood alongside each other. Explanatory headings additionally strengthened the standpoint that favoured the distinction.
A brief consideration of Epistles 47 and 48 may serve to illustrate this point. Cornelius cautioned Cyprian against the wickedness of their common enemy, whereupon the latter acknowledged the information and then supplied invectives of his own. The Roman bishop set forth a number of charges that seem to be aimed at a single offender, Novatus, the figure that stands for Donatus of Casae Nigrae in this epistolary fiction. He had a secular patroness, the equivalent of a Lucilla that was said to finance Donatus against Caecilian. He was the instigator of a schism. He appointed a bishop. He constantly was joining leaders and protectors to his side. But the letter that has come down to us clumsily disperses these counts among Novatus, Nicostratus, Evaristus, and others, which obscures the image of their dreaded adversary, "this wretched man ... (who) contrived greater and worser things (in Rome) by his malice and insatiable wickedness than those which he was then always practising among his own people (in Africa)". The heading stated that the abovementioned characters were members of the faction of Novatian.
While preserving the names of Evaristus and Nicostratus, Cyprian’s purported reply (E48) radically changed the accusations that Cornelius had laid on them. In the passage where he wrote that "(you) most fully instructed us against the new and mischievous devices of Novatian and Novatus for attacking the Church of Christ", the name Novatian, which does not elsewhere occur in any of the two letters, is a highly probable interpolation. Although he could not prevent the reintegration of many Roman rigorists in the Church under Miltiades, the turbulent prophet always incited them to rebellion against the lawful prelates. Cyprian-Caecilian hardly needed to be briefed about his outrages. In addition to his setting up of a new Church in Rome that fiercely resisted the legitimate bishop, Novatus-Donatus had sown the seeds of discord throughout Africa, where he even fostered the election of a rival Primate. Since the ecclesiastical trial that the Emperor convened in Rome found him guilty and kept the dissidents in Italy for a while, those Donatist leaders who returned to Carthage were no more than apostates and criminals. "From being a bishop (he) has now not remained even a layman; but banished from the see and from the people ... (Donatus) did not wish so much to come (back) into Africa as to escape thither from the city (of Rome) ... and now a deserter and a fugitive from the Church, as if to have changed the clime were to change the man, he goes on to boast and announce himself a confessor (he now poses as a victim and tries to submit the dispute to Gallic arbitration) ... For about Novatus there need have been nothing told by you to us (we, indeed, know him better than anyone else), as always greedy of novelty (introducing new prophecies), raging with the rapacity of an insatiable avarice, inflated with the arrogance and stupidity of swelling pride ... When Novatus withdrew thence from among you, that is, when the storm and the whirlwind departed, calm arose there in part, and the glorious and good confessors who by his instigation had departed from the Church, after he retired from the city, returned to the Church (when Rome was momentarily free of his pernicious influence, Hippolytus was accepted and the dispute almost sorted out). This is the same Novatus who first sowed among us the flames of discord and schism (who stirred up rebellion after Mensurius’ death) ... He it is who, without my leave or knowledge, of his own factiousness and ambition appointed his attendant Felicissimus a deacon (Majorinus, his man of straw, as visible leader), and with his own tempest sailing also to Rome to overthrow the Church (summoned by Constantine in 313) endeavoured to do similar and equal things there ... He who in the one place had made a deacon contrary to the Church, in the other made a (Novatian) bishop". Such Novatus made no alliance in Rome with a hitherto undistinguished Novatian that held the leadership at a later stage while he disappeared. At most, their names were unnaturally juxtaposed. They both are but fictional representations of the same historical personage, the indomitable Numidian Donatus Magnus.
The purist renewal, which survived for centuries in adverse conditions in Africa as in many other regions, was not universally recognized by the name of its true initiator. Notwithstanding that Montanus probably was nothing more than a conspicuous priest of Cybele, its enemies often referred to it as Montanism. Since they patterned their lives on the demanding tenets of the martyr Novatus, non-African rigorists were called Novatians. No further tract rebuking the established churchmen survived after the epoch of Tertullian. Donatus was not the author of the most important Novatian writing still extant, De Trinitate, nor was its content embarrassing in any way for mainstream clerics. Once any model figure was drawn up, needless to say, not only a number of treatises but the very mortal remains might turn up at any moment, which would be solemnly interred and tribute regularly paid by fervent supporters.
In his first epistle, the blessed Cyprian reminisced about the time when he was still remote from truth and light, used to liberal banquets, glittering in gold and purple, but held in bonds by clinging vices and innumerable errors. Then the saving water removed the obscurity. Quickened to a new life of grace and renunciation, he thereafter exposed the criminal and shameful ways of the pagan world.
The Primate of Africa had "for a certain reason withdrawn, in doing which he acted quite rightly, because he is a person of eminence, and because a conflict is impending" (E2.1). He was apprehensive that an over-bold presence might irritate the authorities. "Nevertheless, although absent in body, I was not wanting either in spirit or in act" (E14.1). While exhorting his clergy to discharge "both your own office and mine" (E4.1), he comforted the confessors with the reassuring declaration that "in a certain manner, I’m also there with you in prison" (E15.1). Even though he would like to meet his presbyters, "there is not yet any opportunity of coming to you" (E12.1). He deeply missed his beloved brethren: "An exile of, now, two years was not sufficient, and a mournful separation from you ... breaks me to pieces with my continual grief and lamentation" (E39.4).
Ineffective and disruptive, the Decian edict ceased to be enforced within a year of its publication. From around January 251 to August 257, Christians were no longer harassed. Strangely enough at first sight, the Epistles of Cyprian renounced to depict any triumphant return of their hero, not even in the days when Valerian’s entire house "was filled with pious persons and was a church of God" (Eusebius, EH7.10.3). On the one hand, historical memories recorded that he never resumed his position in Carthage. On the other, it was preferable to make him first a victim on the run and then a martyr. Pagans relentlessly troubled the rightful clergy while the schismatic were spared. The literary Cyprian did not need their tolerance to hold sway over vast territories, convene large synods, become the moral advisor in the entire West, and even keep in touch with the eastern prelates. The goodwill of the authorities, so important in the real world, would only detract from his merits. Hence his retirement lasted until the end, which later commentators found too hard to endorse. But his letters explained that he remained absent, "detained by such urgent affairs" (E55.1). "Now for six years the brotherhood has neither had a bishop, nor the people a prelate, nor the flock a pastor", he wrote to a Pupianus that paid attention to his slanderers (E68.5). Cyprian extolled those condemned in the mines, "banished as I am for the sake of confession of the Name" (E76.1). So accustomed were the authors of his alleged correspondence to portray his estrangement throughout an unceasing persecution that he even stood concealed while he was in the course of giving himself up: "Here in a hidden retreat I await the arrival of the proconsul returning to Carthage" (E82.1).
The African Church having split into two bitterly opposed factions, Caecilian’s enemies pronounced his hasty proclamation as bishop of Carthage unlawful. The traditor Felix of Aptunga who consecrated him could hardly pass on a grace he had lost for himself. Forsaking a communion that no longer secured eternal salvation, believers should henceforward go over to the party of those brave confessors of Christ in times of hardship who never ran out of the divine gifts. Under the guidance of Majorinus, all of them formed a Church of the Martyrs that faithfully followed the apostolic tradition unlike their carnally oriented rivals.
Cyprian-Caecilian explained in his letters that many Christians demanded spiritual assistance from imprisoned martyrs who rashly complied with their requests, circumventing the regular clergy. He tried to discredit them as men who irresponsibly granted forgiveness to large numbers of arrogant petitioners, while emphasizing that such absolution was invalid as long as it had not been endorsed by himself or his priests. Moreover, he refused to assuage the grief of those misguided sinners for the time being. Whoever had listened to these unruly confessors, i.e. to the Donatist dissenters, were apostates of the Church of Christ. Thereby surely entitled to damnation, they would only be spared if he baptized them anew when they had adequately proved their repentance. Caecilian and Donatus saw eye to eye with each other about the necessity for members of the opposing faction to prostrate themselves at their feet in sackcloth and atone for their audacity. The bishop of Carthage upheld "the due severity of divine rigour" at the sight of the mischievous presbyters that perverted the confessors, former shepherds who had turned into butchers that led the flock to eternal ruin. "Let them preserve your petitions and wishes for the (rightful) bishops," he admonished (E10.2).
By placing his rivals on a level with the pagans, Cyprian expected to discourage their adherents. "(If Novatians) shall see that the baptism wherewith they are baptized is considered just and legitimate they will think that they are justly and legitimately in possession of the Church also, and the other gifts of the Church, nor will there be any reason for their coming to us when, as they have baptism, they seem also to have the rest ... But when they know that no remission of sins can be given outside the Church, they more eagerly and readily hasten to us and implore the gifts and benefits of the Church" (E72.24). His own intransigence did not prevent him from proclaiming that the rigorist stance, which would never grant clean slates to the lapsi, was unbearably inhuman. "Repentance itself is taken away by your hardness and cruelty, which intercepts the fruits of repentance" (E51.29). Such fruits might include a convenient exoneration from past doings that would thenceforth confirm them in their positions against any embarrassing enquiry.
Furthermore, the section of the African church that courageously braved Diocletian’s decrees declared that besides refusing them help, the laxists put obstacles in their way. Supporters of the conceited deacon Caecilian starved the imprisoned martyrs to death, throwing to the dogs the food they supplied and spilling their drink. References to a large sum of money that the lawful bishop collected with the contribution of his modest clerics in favour of the Numidians (E59), or to Cyprian’s paternal care for the good confessors, comprising both economic assistance (E4,E36) and promotion to higher responsibilities in his Church (E32,E33), which they warmly recognized in writing (E77,E79), met these malevolent accusations.
Cyprian and the worthy confessors who deferred to his authority were a haven of dignity and saintliness that held firm against the onslaught of the shameless Novatian priests, who strove to alienate the Christians from their true rulers. "For what a disgrace is suffered by your name, when one spend his days in intoxication and debauchery, another returns to that country whence he was banished, to perish when arrested, not now as being a Christian, but as being a criminal! ... There are not wanting those who defile the temples of God, and the members sanctified after confession and made glorious, with a disgraceful and infamous concubinage, associating their beds promiscuously with women’s!" (E6.4-5). "Felicissimus (Majorinus) has been attempting many things with wickedness and craft; so that, besides his old frauds and plundering, of which I had formerly known a good deal, he has now, moreover, tried to divide with the bishop (Caecilian) a portion of the people ... he has also threatened our brethren, who had first approached to be relieved, with a wicked exercise of power, and with a violent dread, that those who desired to obey me should not communicate with him in death" (E37.1). "He is excommunicated by us, inasmuch as he adds to his frauds and rapines, which we have known by the clearest truth, the crime also of adultery, which our brethren, grave men, have declared that they have discovered" (E37.2). Each side threatened the supporters of the other with the unquenchable fire.
But the false martyr Novatus perpetrated even greater excesses. "Orphans despoiled by him, widows defrauded, moneys moreover of the Church withheld, exact from him those penalties which we behold inflicted in his madness. His father also died of hunger in the street, and afterwards even in death was not buried by him. The womb of his wife was smitten by a blow of his heel; and in the miscarriage that soon followed, the offspring was brought forth, the fruit of a father’s murder. And now does he dare to condemn the hands of those who sacrifice, when he himself is more guilty in his feet, by which the son, who was about to born, was slain?" (E48.2).
Purists drew their inspiration from wicked demons, not from the Holy Ghost. An Anatolian prelate duly instructed Cyprian on the true nature of their pernicious innovations: "They who are called Cataphrygians, and endeavour to claim to themselves new prophecies, can have neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, of whom, if we ask what Christ they announce, they will reply that they preach Him who sent the Spirit that speaks by Montanus and Prisca" (E74.7). "There arose among us on a sudden a certain woman, who in a state of ecstasy announced herself as a prophetess, and acted as if filled by the Holy Ghost. And she was so moved by the impetus of the principal demons, that for a long time she made anxious and deceived the brotherhood ... here also she deceived one of the presbyters, a countryman, and another, a deacon, so that they had intercourse with that same woman ... (then an exorcist) showed that which was before thought holy, was indeed a most wicked spirit" (E74.10). Tertullian’s harmful teaching had finally been unmasked.
Since the Epistles of Cyprian set forth Caecilian’s standpoint in the schism that broke out in 312, although somewhat disfigured to make them fit into a supposed narrative written during the reigns of Decius and Valerian, several historical events from their real time can be traced in them.
1. The repressive actions that Maximian carried out between 303 and 305 threw the Roman church into disarray and ruined her bishop’s reputation, as the Liber Pontificalis would record. When they ceased, Christians encountered great difficulties to set up a widely accepted leader. Caecilian celebrated that, after a period of uncertainty and mutual accusations, there was a sector of the Roman clergy intent on rehabilitating his memory against those who branded him a traditor. The right course for a priest was invariably to glorify the Episcopal image before the believers, just as he extolled the controversial figure of Cyprian. "The report of the departure of the excellent man, my colleague (Fabian in the role of Marcellinus) was still uncertain among us (whether he was a traitor or otherwise)". While conceding the existence of another letter –position- that strongly deprecated his behaviour, he was pleased to see that other presbyters of his own trend posited him as a martyr. This was the right course to follow, "for in proportion to the fall of a bishop is an event which tends ruinously to the fall of his followers, so on the other hand it is a useful and helpful thing when a bishop, by the firmness of his faith, sets himself forth (is depicted) to his brethren as an object of imitation" (E3.1).
2. In 313 Constantine still was insufficiently aware of the fact that Donatism would stand firm against any pressure and spread a state of unrest all over Africa. He attempted to ease the tension after the Roman finding merely by delaying the return of the rigorist leaders while some money was distributed among their following through the Caecilian church. "Another returns to that country whence he was banished, to perish when arrested, not now as being a Christian, but as being a criminal" (E6.4). "Although I sent you as my substitutes to discharge the necessities of our brethren with funds ... he (Felicissimus) has interfered, and directed that no one should be relieved" (E37.1). Majorinus warned his adherents against being bought off with the three thousand folles the emperor sent to his rival with this aim in view (Eusebius, EH10.6).
3. Concerning an internal matter of the Church, which only a large synod composed of Caecilian’s colleagues should sort out, the schismatic leader connived with imperial officials against the rightful prelate. Yet unsatisfied, he would attempt it again. "Retaining that ancient venom against my episcopate, that is, against your suffrage and God’s judgment, they renew their old attack upon me ... Those five (ten) presbyters are none other than the five (ten) leaders who were lately associated with the magistrates in an edict (trial in Rome, October 313), that they might overthrow our faith (depose me) ... Now the same scheme (synod to be held at Arles, 314), the same overturning, is again brought by the five presbyters" (E39.1-3).
4. The bishop of Carthage was apprised of the agreement that the rivalling Roman factions reached under Maxentius. A substantial portion of the rigorist party returned to the established Church in exchange for certain concessions, while a small group of Novatian dissidents inflexibly held out on its own. "(Heraclius’ followers) were charged with having very lately repeatedly sent letters full of calumnies and reproaches, in their name, through all the churches, and had disturbed nearly all the churches ... they had also committed schismatic acts, and had been the authors of heresy, so that they suffered hands to be imposed on him (Hippolytus, referred to as Maximus) as if upon a bishop. And when these and other matters had been charged upon them, they entreated that they might be done away and altogether discharged from memory ... desiring with earnest prayers that what had been done might fall into oblivion, and no mention might be made of it ... as though nothing had been either done or said, all things on both sides being forgiven ... the people should be informed of all this proceeding, that they might see those men established in the Church whom they had long seen and mourned as wanderers and scattered (they would recover their posts) ... Wherefore we bade Maximus the presbyter to take his own place (unreservedly endorsed the figure of Hippolytus); the rest (the rigorist clerics that gave in) we received with great approbation of the people ... We believe –nay, we confide in it for certain- that the others also who have ranged in this error (diehard Novatians) will shortly return into the Church when they see their leaders acting with us (which Donatus promptly forestalled)" (E45). Caecilian scornfully took this triumph away from Miltiades in his account and ascribed it to Marcellus (Cornelius).
5. The bishop Marcellus, who allegedly suffered the lies of malignants and deceivers, also withstood with admirable strength of mind the inequitable conditions Maxentius imposed to accept him as the Christian leader. Seemingly more interested in him than in facing up to the great challenge his rival Constantine represented for his reign, the despot was eventually overthrown. "He intrepidly sate at Rome in the sacerdotal chair at that time when a tyrant, odious to God’s priests ... would much more patiently and tolerantly hear that a rival prince was raised up against himself than that a priest of God was established at Rome ... yet Cornelius ... conquered the tyrant first of all by his priestly office, who was afterwards conquered in arms and in war" (E51.9).
6. When Marcellus was banished in 309, following some clashes in the streets of Rome, Eusebius took over. In the Epistles of Cyprian, Lucius succeeded Cornelius after a glorious confession of the latter. Alluding to Eusebius under the name of Callistus, Heraclius (Hippolytus) gave out that his former exile in the island came as a consequence of his misdeeds (Ref.9.7). In contrast to him, Caecilian sang his praises: "Your banishment was so divinely arranged, not that the bishop banished and driven away should be wanting to the Church, but that he should return to the Church greater than he had left it" (E57.1).
7. Donatus’ petition of an even-handed arbitration to be reached by less involved Gallic prelates resulted in a further hearing of the African conflict, where he intended to present incriminating evidence against Caecilian. In 314 Constantine "commanded a number of bishops from a great many different places to assemble in the city of Arles, before the kalends of August" for the purpose of removing all dissensions among the bishops (EH10.5). One of Cyprian’s letters sharply reflects the situation. The name of the city is preserved, while the Numidian schismatic appears as the rigorist Gaul Marcian of Arles, who "has stood forth as the opponent of mercy and love; let him not pronounce sentence, but receive it; and let him not so act as if he himself were to judge of the college of priests, since he himself is judged by all the priests". It was Donatus, not Caecilian that should answer the charges and get a sweeping statement of conviction. He wanted him to be deposed by his assembled colleagues in a show of solidarity. "Let letters be directed by you into the province and to the people abiding in Arles ... the body of priests is abundantly large, joined together by the bond of mutual concord, and the link of unity; so that if any one of our college should try to originate heresy, and to lacerate and lay waste Christ’s flock, others may help ... Intimate plainly to us who has been substituted at Arles in the place of Marcian" (E66).
8. A few years before the synod of Arles, nineteen bishops and twenty-six presbyters from the Diocesis of Hispania met in Iliberri (Granada). The so-called Council of Elvira adopted several canons on ecclesiastical discipline, whereby those who had committed grave offences against the Church were declared excommunicate. These provisions could well have applied to the Iberian bishops Basilides and Martial, whom Cyprian put on a level with his rival Novatus. An epistle incited the believers to get rid of such abominable churchmen, who would surely lead them to their eternal damnation. "Nor let the people flatter themselves that they can be free of the contagion of sin, while communicating with a priest who is a sinner, and yielding their consent to the unjust and unlawful episcopacy of their overseer ... a people obedient to the Lord’s precepts, and fearing God, ought to separate themselves from a sinful prelate, and not to associate themselves with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest ... we not only approve, but applaud, dearly beloved brethren, the religious solicitude of your integrity and faith, and exhort you as much as we can by our letters, not to mingle in sacrilegious communion with profane and polluted priests" (E67). Hence Christians should expel the disgraceful Donatist clergy that apostatised the true Church when they failed to obey their lawful Primate.
Cyprian became indignant at the sight of "some among our colleagues, dearest brethren, who think that the godly discipline may be neglected, and who rashly hold communion with Basilides and Martialis". "(Cornelius) has long decreed with us, and with all the bishops appointed throughout the whole world, that men of this sort ... were prohibited from the ordination of the clergy, and from the priestly honour". However, "Basilides (Donatus), after the detection of his crimes, and the baring of his conscience even by his own confession, went to Rome (in 313) and deceived Stephen our colleague (was listened to by Miltiades) ... to canvass that he might be replaced unjustly in the episcopate from which he had been righteously deposed (in search of assistance against Caecilian)" (E67.3). Wanting in ecclesiastical help against Miltiades, Caecilian resorted to the people.
His party having the largest support in the proconsular province, Mensurius’ right-hand man had little doubt that no other than him could become the rightful bishop of Carthage. However, his enemies turned an ecclesiastical matter into a civil issue through their constant agitation. When Miltiades was requested to settle the dispute, he could have urged all the prelates from the European territories under Constantine’s rule to close ranks around their Carthaginian colleague in unanimous condemnation of the turbulent schismatic. But he would rather negotiate an agreement. He called him to the Lateran Palace as if he had been a factious leader, assisted by the same number of representatives than the apostate of the Church of Christ, to give explanations and be evaluated by him. Outraged as he was, Caecilian had to comply. He could not put up a fight against his African rivals, the non-African Catholic clergy, and the imperial authority at a time.
While abundantly reflecting the enmity between them, the Epistles revised the most humiliating events. Far from appearing in Rome as a defendant, Cyprian presided over imaginary synods where the African bishops in complete accord warned Stephen that in Christianity "neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague 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" (Seventh Council of Carthage; E71).
Stephen’s (Miltiades’) behaviour fell conspicuously short of that of his predecessors in Peter’s chair. Moreover, there was a marked contrast with the sympathy that the Roman clergy showed to him at the period of vacant see (E25, E29, E30). Miltiades might have acted regarding his appointment as Cyprian did after the election of Cornelius. Following Novatian’s unlawful ordination as bishop of Rome in opposition to him (at the time Heraclius in league with Donatus were seriously challenging his rule over the Roman church), "when in our solemn assembly they burst in with invidious abuse and turbulent clamour, demanding that the accusations (against Cornelius), which they said that they brought and could prove, should be publicly investigated by us and by the people, we said that it was not consistent with our gravity to suffer the honour of our colleague, who had already been chosen and ordained and approved by the laudable sentence of many, to be called into question any further by the abusive voice of rivals" (E40.1). "When a bishop is once made and approved by the testimony and judgment of his colleagues and the people, another can by no means be appointed" (E40.2). Miltiades should have never endorsed the public trial of his colleague. "We repudiated those things which from the other party had been heaped together with bitter virulence into a document transmitted to us ... they ought neither to be read nor to be heard ... when such things are written by the calumnious temerity of some, we do not allow them to be read among us" (E41.2). After finding out about the matter from Caecilian, he should have rallied all the prelates in support of his stance. In order to dispel their doubts, "it was sufficient for you (Cornelius) to announce yourself by letters to have been made bishop" (E41.3), "and having got a greater authority from the proof of your ordination (lawfulness), and so at length every scruple being got rid of from the breast of everyone –that letters should be sent you by all who were placed anywhere in the (African) province" (E44.3).
Unfortunately, "some of our colleagues would rather give honour to heretics than agree with us" (E70.1). The hardest recriminations were subjoined as the comments of an Eastern correspondent, who sadly remembered ‘his audacity and pride’, along with ‘the things he has wickedly done’ (E74.3), and was justly indignant at "the manifest folly of Stephen ... he who so boasts of the place of his episcopate and contends that he holds the succession from Peter" (E74.17). Miltiades arrogantly disallowed any alternative plan towards the settlement of the schism: "He refused to receive (your) bishops even to the speech of an ordinary conference, and even more, (was) so mindful of love and charity as to command the entire fraternity that no one should receive them into his house" (E74.25).
Caecilian considered that Donatus’ followers doubtless were nothing but enemies of the true faith. "They must all absolutely be baptized with the baptism of the Church who come from adversaries and antichrists to the Church of Christ" (E75.11). Having a more positive view about them in mind, Miltiades would attempt once again with the Africans what he had successfully achieved among Romans. In the Epistles of Cyprian, his Carthaginian colleague took his revenge on him by extolling the merits of the other bishops of Rome, "for the glorious honour of our predecessors, the blessed martyrs Cornelius (Marcellus) and Lucius (Eusebius), must be maintained, whose memory we hold in honour" (E66.5). Blatantly ignoring Stephen’s demise, Cyprian passed on to eulogize his successor Xistus (Sylvester), "martyred in the cemetery on the eighth day of the Ides of August, and with him four deacons" (E71.1). Consecrated in January 314 after the death of Miltiades, Sylvester was not present at Arles. Even though, in point of fact, his pontificate would be long, Caecilian speedily rewarded him with an excellent confession of the Name.
The Epistles of Cyprian seem to have been completed in 314, between the election of Sylvester and the sittings of the synod of Arles, whose verdict in favour of Caecilian would have otherwise been recorded, at least in Epistle 66. They probably were composed on his initiative with the intention of handing them out to the bishops that participated in the sessions as valuable testimonies that bore out his position in the controversy. Having them in mind to a certain extent, other works ascribed to Cyprian were subsequently written. His treatise on the lapsed reflects the final condemnation of Donatus in 316, after he had appealed again to the emperor in Milan. Without mentioning any name, it scathingly denounces the awesome antagonist "whom neither fear could correct nor persecution itself could reform. His high and rigid neck, even when it has fallen is unbent; his swelling and haughty soul is not broken, even when it is conquered. Prostrate, he threatens those who stand; and wounded, the sound" (De lapsi,22). In May 321, the fiery Numidian finally obtained Constantine’s neutrality. Having tested their unflinching determination, the emperor thus secured a pacified Africa in the eve of his major confrontation with the Eastern Augustus. The rigorist trend spread with force all over the province under the skilful guidance of Donatus, and later on of his successor Parmenian. Despite their decline in the following century, Donatists would only be wiped out when their secular adversaries in the Church were too.
The Life and Passion of Cyprian is a late panegyric where the deacon Pontius supposedly described the virtues of his bishop. Deterred by the contemplation of the greatness of Cyprian’s doings, the author confessed to being incompetent to discourse in a way that should be worthy of the honour of his deserts. One might concede this point, seeing that in his seven-thousand words biography he finds no opportunity to mention Novatian, nor Novatus, nor Stephen, nor Cornelius, nor any synod whatever. He merely commented in passing that Cyprian taught unity to schismatics and steered a middle course between unspecified opposing schisms.
This convoluted narrative threads its way through a series of Donatist attacks on Cyprian. The bishop of Carthage was comfortably resting in his gardens when the soldiers arrived. Moistened with excessive perspiration and trembling with fear, he was at a loss to utter a word. Since he needed to make arrangements concerning his property, Cyprian entreated that a delay should be conceded. Unwilling to punish him, the indulgent proconsul granted him a gentle custody, with his associates and friends keeping him company. When he left the praetorium, a place of retirement had been accorded him. It was a sunny and suitable spot, where his followers supplied him abundantly and his deacon stayed in voluntary exile with him. The exact date of his alleged passion was unknown.
Such assertions were countered in a most peculiar way. "Let us conceive of the place (of exile, for the sake of argument) filthy in situation, squalid in appearance, having no wholesome water, no pleasantness of verdure, no neighbouring shore ... far removed in the pathless regions of the world" (LPC11). It was in a dream that Cyprian trembled and urgently entreated. A brilliant sun made him perspire. Eminent friends proposed his withdrawal, but he did not yield to their tempting persuasion. On the other hand, "(Cyprian) had obeyed the Lord, who then bade him seek the place of concealment" (LPC7). The Primate sold his gardens at the beginning of his faith, which "being restored by God’s mercy, he would assuredly have sold again for the use of the poor" (LPC15). "Though he were banished into a hidden and secret place, yet, associated with the affairs of God, he cannot regard it as an exile" (LPC11). Moreover, "by the extent of the space beyond, the view (of his passion) was not attainable to the confused crowd" (LPC18), but those who climbed up the trees contemplated his executioner’s trembling fingers. It must be supposed that whoever attempted to find out what really did happen would drop the writing and make some priest explain it to him.
As clarity comes back at the end of the account, readers discover to their amazement that "his passion being thus accomplished, it resulted that Cyprian, who had been an example to all good men, was also the first who in Africa imbued his priestly crown with blood of martyrdom, because he was the first who began to be such after the apostles. For from the time at which the episcopal order is enumerated at Carthage, not one is ever recorded, even of good men and priests, to have come to suffering" (LPC19). Accordingly, the references of a Tertullian to persecution in the time of Septimius Severus, along with the testimonies on Scillitan martyrs or Perpetua and Felicitas, deserve no credit. Unlike Anterus-Miltiades, the impassioned African clerics would by no means accept a comprehensive martyrology.
Tertullian is traditionally viewed as a vehement apologist of unknown biography who suddenly burst into Latin Christianity with a number of remarkable treatises. He composed them over a relatively short period of time, after which he fizzled out for the rest of his long life. He surprisingly focused his attacks on a Greek painter, and also fought some other unfamiliar character that could not share his admiration for a strange group of visionaries who lived in Phrygia long time since. Not only himself but also his own epoch was elusive. An imaginary persecution of the Christians unleashed his fury. In addition, he bitterly rebuked some unidentified portion of the clergy. Following his relentless defence of the orthodox stance and his proscription of all heretics, at some point in time he forsook the Church Catholic to follow the ridiculous directions and put up with the frivolities of a gang of false prophets. Such two hardly compatible stages in his career were not successive but widely overlapping.
Cyprian was the bishop that fled Carthage when Decius launched his anti-Christian campaign. There was no memory that he ever resumed office. Both absent and present, he imperturbably ruled the African Church, convened councils and played an active part in Roman, Gallic or Hispanic ecclesiastical issues. Sometimes he solemnly declared that bishops were only accountable to God, but on other occasions he invited other prelates, or even the laity, to depose them. A Novatus whom he often mistook for Novatian ruthlessly opposed him. Completely unaware of the existence of any earlier African martyr, when persecution broke out in his time –naturally, confined to the harassment of non-schismatic Christians- he had recourse to biblical citations to account for such unexpected situation.
Besides drawing a distinction between an African Donatus and a Roman Novatian, Jerome strove to consolidate Tertulian’s position as a memorable apologist of the Church. As he had learnt from a conversation with his secretary, Cyprian thought highly of him. "He said that he himself had seen how Cyprian was accustomed never to pass a day without reading Tertullian, and that he frequently said to him, ‘Give me the master’, meaning by this Tertullian" (De viris illustribus,53). Born in 347 and baptized in 366, Jerome may have met him in 370. Since the secretary could be twenty when Cyprian took to flight in 250, the eminent Father of the Church, then twenty-three, presumably was greatly impressed by the sharp memory of his a hundred and forty-years-old companion.
Tertullian was most reluctantly taken aboard. Even though his treatises were spared, his prestige had to be cut down. In order to rule out the possibility of his becoming a martyr, church writers declared that he went on living to a decrepit old age -just like Donatus, who was eventually banished in 347 and died in Gaul in 355. The influence of his thought in Cyprian’s works is undeniable but, however much the latter takes on his rigour in praise of martyrdom, reproves public shows, admonishes the actors, restrains virgins to a fitting modesty or betrays some knowledge of his theological conceptions, the figure of an outstanding predecessor in the times of Septimius Severus never comes into view. If Heraclius and Donatus endorsed no meritorious confession arriving from the laxist camp -Callistus, Praxeas, or the well-known Carthaginian martyr, being but impostors- the established churchmen likewise accepted no rigorist martyrdom before Cyprian, nor in his time, "whom, on the other hand, the devil would spare as being his own" (E57.3).
There is no new turn of mind in Tertullian that justifies splitting his works under two different headings, orthodox and Montanist. The alleged anti-Christian heretic was in fact an inflexible reformer of the customs who made numberless enemies. His tracts are the produce of a fervent apologist whose initial target, a hostile pagan world, brought him instant fame within the Church, but who unhappily passed on to confront his co-religionists with increasing zeal, once Christianity was again accepted, to instil in them a deeper feeling of the divine.
Mingling persecution and schism, the Epistles of Cyprian portrayed the struggle between some imprisoned clerics and their runaway bishop concerning the expediency of forgiving or not forgiving certain other people. Striking situations sometimes occurred: "The deacons passing in and out of the prison controlled the wishes of the martyrs by their counsels" (E10.1). Confessors thus suffered for Christ’s sake while the regular priests that ducked out on the issue and went unmolested preached them serenity and discipline. A confessor that had been set free was placed on the pulpit daily to read the Gospel of the Lord to the people, whereas his bishop should better remain concealed (E33.4). When the decrees came into force, Christians at large either became lapsi through their perfunctory compliance with the formality or else they fled, the former being the only ones capable of sustaining the Churches by their economic and personal support. Whoever ambitioned no ecclesiastical post but solely expected in exchange that clerics brought them an inner peace hardly could be turned down in either camp without due absolution. What was really under dispute was the legitimacy of the current, formerly appeasing hierarchy, called into question by impetuous churchmen that longed for their taking over. Rigour endangered the established apparatus while leniency dissipated the chances of their expectant successors. Two literary fictions reworked a 4th-century conflict as others taking place in the beginning of the previous century or else in its second half, each of them conveniently slanted in favour of one group or the other.
The acknowledgement of this apologetic recast results in an extraordinary simplification. All the abovementioned characters thereby fall on the time that immediately preceded the Council of Nicaea. Tertullian’s and Novatian’s treatises cease to be amazing forerunners of its theological notions. What seems incredible is that such scarcely consistent reworking of later events should stand unchallenged for almost two millennia. Among other considerations, what Tertullian and Cyprian reported, like Emma Zunz’s explanation in Borges’s story, convinced everyone because substantially it was true. Their tone was true, true their indignation, and true their hatred. "Only the circumstances were false, the time, and one or two proper names". Tombstones, earlier writings, and their own inventiveness easily provided one or two hundred.
Madrid, January 2003.
Tertuliano ha sido tradicionalmente considerado como un personaje carente de biografía que irrumpió súbitamente en la Cristiandad latina en tiempos de Septimio Severo, produciendo importantes obras religiosas en un período de tiempo relativamente breve, y que luego renunció a escribir durante el resto de su larga vida. No sólo era evanescente él sino también su época. Lanzó un torrente de invectivas a raíz de una persecución de cristianos imaginaria y criticó con aspereza a no se sabe qué clérigos. Se encolerizó de modo desmesurado e incomprensible con un pintor griego, así como con alguien que no compartía su admiración por unos místicos frigios del siglo segundo. Tras defender enérgicamente la ortodoxia y proscribir a todos los herejes, abandonó él mismo la Iglesia Católica para someterse a las directrices de unos visionarios frívolos y disparatados.
Por su parte, Cipriano fue el obispo que abandonó Cartago al adoptar Decio medidas anticristianas. No se registró que regresara a su sede una vez pasado el peligro. Estaba ausente y presente simultáneamente, dirigiendo a sus fieles, interviniendo en asuntos de Roma, Galia o Hispania, y convocando concilios. Lo mismo podía considerar que los obispos sólo respondían ante Dios que exhortar a otros prelados, o a los mismos fieles, a deponerlos. Nunca mencionó a Tertuliano y no acertaba a distinguir a Novaciano de Novato. No tenía la menor idea de que hubiera existido anteriormente una persecución en África y, al sobrevenir en su propia época, hubo de recurrir a citas bíblicas para justificar la insólita situación.
El presente estudio muestra pormenorizadamente cómo los citados apologistas no son sino figuras literarias bajo las que se expresaban dos facciones cristianas ásperamente enfrentadas tras la abdicación de Diocleciano. Rigoristas norteafricanos y romanos denunciaban con vehemencia a un estamento eclesial decidido a mantenerse a toda costa en el poder. Aquellos presentaban sus ideas bajo los nombres de Tertuliano y de Hipólito; este último defendía a la Iglesia episcopal enarbolando la figura de Cipriano. El desfase de cincuenta años entre unos y otros es sólo aparente. Unos proyectaban su personaje representativo cien años atrás, sobre los reinados de Severo y Caracalla. Otros preferían retroceder medio siglo para situar sus mártires en los tiempos conflictivos de Decio y Valeriano. Todos ellos presentaban, tenuemente velados, acontecimientos y personajes de su verdadera época.
Copyright © 2003 Ignacio Zubillaga
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