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On the Unity of the Church

Cyprian of Carthage

The Treatises of Cyprian.

About this work

A pastoral argument for the visible unity of the church around its bishops, written amid schism and persecution and framed through biblical images of one people and one household.

Author: Cyprian of Carthage
Date: c. AD 251
Origin: Carthage, North Africa
Genre: Theological Treatise

The Treatises of Cyprian.

Treatise I.

On the Unity of the Church.

Argument.—On the Occasion of the Schism

Section 1 ›

of

Novatian

,

to

Keep

Back

from

Him

the

Carthaginians

,

Who

Already

Were

Not

Averse

to

Him

,

on

Account

of

Novatus

and

Some

Other

Presbyters

of

His

Church

,

Who

Had

Originated

the

Whole

Disturbance

,

Cyprian

Wrote

This

Treatise

.

And

First

of

All

,

Fortifying

Them

Against

the

Deceits

of

These

,

He

Exhorts

Them

to

Constancy

,

and

Instructs

Them

that

Heresies

Exist

Because

Christ

,

the

Head

of

the

Church

,

is

Not

Looked

To

,

that

the

Common

Commission

First

Entrusted

to

Peter

is

Contemned

,

and

the

One

Church

and

the

One

Episcopate

are

Deserted

.

Then

He

Proves

,

as

Well

by

the

Scriptures

as

by

the

Figures

of

the

Old

and

New

Testament

,

the

Unity

of

the

Church

.

Notes

2
Describing in few words the ambition and dissimulation of Novatian in invading the episcopate of Rome, he argues at length, that neither on the one hand is the passage in Matthew xviii. of any avail to compensate for their fewness as against the Church: “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name,” etc.; nor, on the other, could martyrdom be of any benefit to them outside the Church. Then he tells them that they need not marvel that heresies flourished, since they had been foretold by Christ; nor that certain Roman confessors acquiesced in the schism, because before one’s death no one is blessed, and the traitor Judas was found in the very company of the apostles. Yet he charges them to shun the association of schismatics and heretics, and finally exhorts them by the Scriptures to peace and unanimity.