Sunday, March 17, 2024

Johannes Quasten on Cyprian of Carthage and the Bishop of Rome

  

Cyprian is convinced that the bishop answers to God alone. ‘So long as the bond of friendship is maintained and the sacred unity of the Catholic Church is preserved, each bishop is master of his own conduct, conscious that he must one day render an account himself to the Lord’ (Epist. 55, 21) In his controversy with Pope Stephen on the rebaptism of heretics he voices as the president of the African synod of September 256 his opinion as follows:

 

No one among us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or by tyranny and terror forces his colleagues to compulsory obedience, seeing that every bishop in the freedom of his liberty and power possess the right to his own mind and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. We must all away the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who singly and alone has power to appoint us to the government of his Church and to judge our acts therein (CESL 3, 1, 436)

 

From these words it is evident that Cyprian does not recognize a primacy of jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome over his colleagues. Nor does he think that Peter was given power over the other apostles because he states: hoc errant utique et ceteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio praediti et honoris et potestatis (De unit. 4) No more did Peter claim it: ‘Even Peter, whom the Lord first chose and upon whom He built His church, when Pual later disputed with him over circumcision, he did not claim insolently any prerogative for himself nor make any arrogant assumptions nor say that he had the primacy and ought to be obeyed’ (Epist. 71, 3) (Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. [Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, Inc., 1992], 2:375-76)