12 [" You ought," etc. Does any modern bishop of the Roman obedience presume to speak thus to the "infallible" oracle of the Vatican?]
1 Oxford ed.: Ep. lxvii. A.D. 257.
16 Acts i. 15. From some authorities, Baluzius here interpolates, "the number of men was about a hundred and twenty." But this, says a modern editor, smacks of" emendation."
19 [See Ep. xl. p. 319, supra.]
21 ["Our colleague Stephen," placed at a distance, ignorant of facts and truth, and, in short, incompetent to meddle with the African province in its own business: such was Cyprian's idea of the limits to which even this apostolic See was restricted.]
25 A collector of taxes, so called from the amount of his salary.
27 [Surely a significant warning to our own times.]
28 Some read, "by the furnaces; " some "by arms."
29 [A noteworthy testimony to the Decian period, when to be a Christian, indeed, was to be a confessor or martyr. Soc., H.E., bk. iv. c. 28.]
1 Oxford ed.: Ep. lxvi. From his saying, that he has now discharged his episcopal office for six years (sec. 5), it is plainly evident that he is writing this letter in the time of Stephen. A.D. 254.
2 It is suggested with some probability, that this form of superscription was intended to rebuke the rudeness of Florentius, who, in addressing Cyprian, had used his heathen name of Thascius instead of his baptismal name of Caecilius, which he had adopted from the presbyter who had been the means of his conversion.
5 [A mild remonstrance against the officous conduct of Stephen, also.]
10 [A mild remonstrance against the officous conduct of Stephen, also.]
12 [His aphorism, Ecclesia in Episcopo, is here used in another form. "The bishop" here = the episcopate.]
13 [Praepositum is the word thus translated.]
14 Antistitem. [This word occurs in Tertullian, De Fuga.]
15 [In all this his theory comes out; viz., that unity is maintained by communion with one's lawful bishop, not with any foreign See.]
16 Ecclus. xxviii. 24 (Vulg. 28).
18 [See sec. 6, note 3, supra.]
21 [Not any of his successors, but Peter personally, is thus honoured on the strength of Eph. ii. 20. All the apostles were in this foundation also, Rev. xxi. 14; but the figure excludes successors, who are of the superstructure, necessarily.]
22 [In all this his theory comes out; viz., that unity is maintained by communion with one's lawful bishop, not with any foreign See.]
23 [See sec. 5, supra. This is the famous formula of Cyprian's theory. The whole theory is condensed in what follows.]
24 Gen. xxxvii. 19, 20. [It seems a beautiful coincidence that another Joseph was a "dreamer" (Matt. ii. 20, 23); and in those days, when prophets and prophesyings were hardly yet extinct, we must not too readily call this credulity. Ps. lxxxix. 19, Vulgate.]