Book Review - Cyprian the Bishop

In 249 A.D., in an attempt to bring about a renewal in the devotion to Roman authority and the Roman gods, Roman Emperor Decian issued an edict. The edict called for Roman citizens to take part in a simple sacrifice to the Roman deities. Cyprian, the recently named bishop of Carthage, opted to flee the city and avoid the persecution. Upon his return to Carthage in 251 A.D., Cyprian was forced to deal with the results of the persecution among those who had given in to the edict and those who had resisted. He did so with his now famous On the Lapsed. In dealing with both groups, Cyprian was faithful first to Christ and the biblical mandates that he felt the church was obligated to uphold. He was faithful also to the authority of the Church hierarchy, which he felt was being undermined even by the martyrs, whom he did believe had a special place within the Church. Finally, Cyprian was faithful to his position of bishop, which meant he was not only to lead but also to unite his community during difficult times such as persecutions, regardless of what situation or conditions existed that may have led to it. To complete this task, this study will look at a number of challenges that Cyprian faced while he attempted to remain faithful to these three areas. In doing so, the paper will focus mainly on Cyprian's response to these challenges in his writings from On the Lapsed. The story of Cyprian and the issues surrounding the lapsed do not end with what he wrote in On the Lapsed, and the conclusion of this study will take a few moments to address some of those issues.

'St. Cyprian, a Christian and Roman gentleman', in: Henk Bakker, Paul van Geest, Hans van Loon (edd.), Cyprian of Carthage, Studies in his life, language and thought, (Late Antique History and Religion, Suppl.), (Peeters) Leuven -Paris-Walpole MA 2010, 29-41. <ISBN 978-90-429-2397-3>

1999

Journal of Religion Gregory's thought and the basic ideas underlying his perception of both historical events and his own position in making history. First and foremost there is the integritas animi, that is, Gregory's unique and influential skill of blending the active and contemplative lives into a vita mixta. Next there is his basic sense of the nearing end, the eschatological perspective of history. Within this perspective Gregory's historical activities can be properly assessed. In him we witness a man whose frantic efforts to maintain a minimum of order in the midst of decline and violence are marked by a sense of the ending. Very wisely Markus discusses Gregory's famous Dialogi within this context of "the world in its old age." It is the holy man-figuring so prominently in the Dialogi-who represents the continuity of the divine within the disorder and darkness of worldly events. Both the successful mixture of action and contemplation and the eschatological perspective are held together by Gregory's scriptural understanding. Ultimately, it is his reading of signs-exemplified in the reading of Scripture-that sets him apart from the complexities of Augustine's hermeneutics and turns him into the predecessor of medieval scribes and scholars. Markus's characterization of Gregory's position is fine and to the point: '"Augustine's sense of the solidity of signs and the irretrievably sign-bound nature of human living has no equivalent in Gregory; for him the signified was much more directly accessible. What is absent from Gregory's mind is Augustine's haunting sense of the opacity of signs" (pp. 49-50). This book makes instructive and entertaining reading. If there is one flaw in this elegant account of "Gregory and his world" it is the fact that Gregory's mind set as analyzed in the first four chapters is more or less absent from the rest of the book. What we are left with is history accessible and simple, more "world," less "Gregory." BURCHT PRANGER, University of Amsterdam. STEWART, COLUMBA. Cassian the Monk. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. xviii+286 pp. $60.00 (cloth).

'Practicing what he had taught': Augustine's sermons on Cyprian', in: Jacob Albert van den Berg, Annemaré Kotzé, Tobias Nicklas, Madeleine Scopello (edd.), 'In search of truth'. Augustine, Manichaeism and other Gnosticism. Studies for Johannes van Oort at Sixty, (Brill) Leiden/Boston 2011; 97-108

In commemoration of the release of the Book of Saint Cyprian by Nephilim Press, a short piece about the presence of Saint Cyprian in Brazil and the process by which this edition came to be.

2010

This is the essence of the Christian faith based on the Gospel&#39;s revelation, identical with what Paul said in Ephesians 4: 5-6: “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all of us,” developed and taught faithfully in the whole Christian tradition until today. This specific kind of faith is the solid spiritual framework of the Christian Church and it gives to the Church one of its main characteristics, unity and unicity. It is appropriate to say here that the problem of the unity of the Church was a main preoccupation for its theologians especially in times when the Church passed through difficult crises threatening its very existence with annihilation, distortion, or corruption. This was the case in the time of Cyprian when the Church had to face heresies, schisms, and persecutions that threatened both the being and the visible unity of the Christian community. That is why, according to the specific circumstances in which he wrote, Cyprian had his own app...

PRESENT AND PAST IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND MAGIC Edited by AGNESHESZ EVA POCS BALASSI KIADO, 2019

The

Journal of Religious History , 2003

Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2003

GRBS 65, 2025

This article engages with Oration 24 by Gregory of Nazianzus and suggests that the preacher intentionally fused Cyprian of Carthage and Cyprian of Antioch for two reasons: first, on the narratological level, to reform his audience’s notion of carnal desire in a more saintly direction by reframing the language of eros found in erotic literature; and second, to propose a more tentative historicist hypothesis, that Gregory’s interest in magic was prompted by the contemporary trials of pagan ‘magicians’ and the accusations against his archenemies, the Eunomians, who were accused of theurgy. In doing so the article attempts a reconsideration of Oration 24 in its Sitz im Leben in the late 379, before Nicene Christianity became the religion of the Empire.