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Cyprian
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Introductory Notice to Cyprian.
[2878] [One of the Catholic maxims which has been terribly misunderstood and cruelly abused. See below, p. 385, notes 2 and 3.]
[2879] John iii. 5. [His exposition of this passage explains his hyperbole, nulla salus extra ecclesiam. Of which sec. 23, infra.]
[2880] Luke xii. 50. [See p. 386, first line.]
[2881] [Here is the qualifying maxim to that other dictum. Potens est Dominus misericordia sua, indulgentiam dare. Matt. ix. 13; xii. 7. How emphatic this repeated maxim of Christ! And see Jas. ii. 13.]
[2882] [John’s baptism was under the Law, and was distinguished from Christ’s baptism; which accounts for the plural in Heb. vi. 2.]
[2883] [See Ep. lxxi, sec. 3, p. 379, supra. Here is the spirit, not of Tertullian, but of Irenæus (vol. i. p. 310), which seems to have prevailed in the practical settlement, between East and West, of one vexed question. As a question of canonical consent and of irresistible logic, assuming the premiss, Cyprian appears to me justified.]
[2884] [See Ep. lxxi, sec. 3, p. 379, supra. Here is the spirit, not of Tertullian, but of Irenæus (vol. i. p. 310), which seems to have prevailed in the practical settlement, between East and West, of one vexed question. As a question of canonical consent and of irresistible logic, assuming the premiss, Cyprian appears to me justified.]
[2886] [See this volume, infra.] a.d. 256.
Epistle LXXIII. To Pompey, Against the Epistle of Stephen About the Baptism of Heretics.
[2887] Oxford ed.: Ep. lxxiv.
[2888] On which subject, again, in chap. 25: “I will not now reconsider what he angrily uttered against Stephen, because there is no necessity for it. The very same things are indeed said which have already been sufficiently discussed, and it is better to pass by what suggested the risk of a mischievous dissension. Stephen, for his part, had thought that they who endeavoured to annul the old custom about receiving heretics were to be excommunicated; but the other, moved with the difficulty of that very question, and very largely endowed with a sacred charity, thought that unity might be maintained with them who thought differently. Thus, although there was a great deal of keenness, yet it was always in a spirit of brotherhood; and at length the peace of Christ conquered in their hearts, so that in such a dispute none of the mischief of schism arose between them” (Migne). [Ed. Migne adds, assuming the mediæval system to have been known to Cyprian, as follows]: “Thus far Augustine, whom we have quoted at length, because the passage is opposed to those who strive from this to assert his schism from the Roman pontiff.”
[2889] [It will be seen, more and more, that this entire conviction of Cyprian as to Stephen’s absolute equality with himself, results from the Ante-Nicene system, and accords with his theory of the divine organization of the Church. So Augustine, as quoted in the “Argument.”]
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