ORIGIN OF THE SACRAMENTS AND THE EPISCOPATE AND THE ENSUING PROGRESSIVE INFLUENCE ON CYPRIAN
A Paper Submitted to Dr. Edward L. Smither, THEO 943, Latin Fathers
Floyd E. Schneider, 2012
I. Introduction
II. Origins of the Rituals of Baptism and Communion
III. Origin of the Episcopate
IV. The development of the Episcopate and the continued rise of the Sacramental Theology of the rituals of Baptism and the Eucharist under Cyprian.
V. Summary
I. Introduction
Within the span of one generation, the Reformation rejected more than a century of Roman Catholic hermeneutics and established sola scriptura as the foundation of the Protestant movement. At a fundamental level, the Protestant interpretation of those passages of Scripture that deal specifically with salvation differed radically from the hermeneutics of the Catholic Church. Three doctrines that affected the doctrine of salvation and evidenced these profound differences were the rituals of baptism and communion, and the hierarchy of the episcopate. This paper will determine 1) when and how the believers in the first and second century after Pentecost began to develop the doctrines on baptism, communion, 2) how the episcopate developed and contributed to the progressive understanding of baptism and communion within the Church, and 3) how Cyprian advanced and used the episcopate and these two doctrines to preserve the unity of the Church during his lifetime.
II. Origins of the Rituals of Baptism and Communion
The earliest mention of baptism and communion outside the New Testament appears in the Didache. The document is composed of two parts: (1) instruction about the "Two Ways," and (2) a manual of church order and practice. The first part summarizes how those preparing to be baptized should be taught to live the Christian life. The document displays a Christian adaptation of Jewish moral instruction and, as a written catechism, exemplifies similar material which has been discovered in other Christian writings dating from the 1st to the 5th centuries. Although the Didache is difficult to date due to a lack of contemporary references, the materials used to write it mirror the condition and concerns of the church at the time of and previous to its composition. Although it could have been penned during the second century, J. P. Audet’s commentary suggests a composition date of around 70 CE, J.A.T. Robinson dates it earlier c. 40-60, and Aaron Milavec agrees with these two scholars with a date between c. 50-70.
This document was only discovered in 1873, but C. C. Robinson states that the study of the Church Fathers has uncovered references to it by Athanasius (AD 298-373), Didymus (313-398), and Eusebius (263-339), while Serapion of Thmuis (4th century) quoted it in one of his Eucharistic prayers. The document provides evidence of a mode of baptism other than immersion, as well as recording the oldest known Eucharist prayers.
The second part of the Didache (chapters 7 to 10) begins with the subject of baptism, which is to be performed "in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” allowing for the use of both “living water” (like a natural flowing stream), if it is available, but if not, then in cold or warm water. Everyone taking part in the baptism was requested to fast for one or two days beforehand. If deep running water was not available (for immersion), the baptizer was allowed to use a container to pour water on the candidate or catechumen’s head three times. The relevance of this information is seen in the fact that every religion develops a framework and a set of logistics for carrying out its rituals. The New Testament presents no such items for the performance of baptism. Therefore the early church had to determine its own set of criteria for carrying out the Lord’s Great Commission, which included baptism. Within the first generation of the Church, the believers had established concrete details of performing baptism and outlined these in a document that came to influence the Church for the next three hundred years. This document did not specifically demand that its own set of criteria be exclusively legitimized, but its recommendations were meant for the Church at large, thus limiting by general consensus the freedom of each local church to determine the methods of performing baptism in different ways as determined by the leaders of that local body. Since there was only one Church, it apparently made sense to the author(s) of the Didache to prescribe the logistics of the ceremony for all the churches.
Establishing the logistics of baptism naturally led to the discussion of baptism’s possible efficaciousness. J.N.D. Kelly states that baptism “was always held to convey the remission of sins, but the earlier Pauline conception of it as the application of Christ’s atoning death to the believer seems to have faded.” Clement of Rome seems to have believed that baptism bestowed the Holy Spirit on the believer in his reference to “one Spirit of grace poured out upon us,” through the process of baptism. The description of baptism as “the seal of the Son of God” in 2 Clement and Hermas indicate adherence to the same understanding. The concept of the seal confirmed a person’s identity in the family of God. The remission of sins is also emphasized in the Epistle of Barnabas when it describes the believer weighed down by sins before baptism and emerging from baptism “bearing fruit in our hearts.” This led to the belief that baptism was a prerequisite for the believer’s reception of the fruits of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5. This document claims that before baptism, a person’s heart is filled with demons, while Ignatius, in his letter to Polycarp, suggests that baptism actually provides the believer with weapons for our spiritual warfare. These “speculations” about baptism replaced the simple symbolism of the believer’s participation in the death and resurrection of Christ with a ritual that came to be viewed as essential for salvation.
Justin Martyr, who wrote in the middle of the second century, based the authority for baptism on Isaiah 1:16-29 (“Wash, make yourselves clean, etc.”) as well as John 3:5 (“Unless you are born again, etc.”). He concluded that washing with water, when done in the name of the Trinity, is specifically efficacious for regeneration, illumination and remission of sins. For Justin, baptism replaced Jewish circumcision as entrance into salvation. Irenaeus, an older contemporary of Tertullian, confirmed the development of the accepted view that baptism was the seal of eternal life and caused us to be born of God, thereby transforming us into the sons of God; it imparts to us the Holy Spirit, and cleanses the soul as well as the body, bestowing the Spirit as an earnest of resurrection.
The lack of primary documents revealing any contrary understanding that viewed baptism as simply an outward sign of an inward reality leads to a couple of possible conclusions. First, the symbolic understanding of baptism may have been rejected for reasons unknown to modern scholars and removed from the mainstream of local church baptisms. Second, the Church during persecution saw no need (or had no opportunity) to develop any additional system of checks and balances, other than the rule of faith, that could have prevented the doctrine of baptism from taking on a salvic meaning for everyone within the Church.
The second ritual that took on major signficance in the struggle for unity within the Church was the Eucharist. The statements in the Didache relevant to this study are found in chapter 9. First, the Didache explained the cup. "Now concerning the Eucharist, give thanks this way. First, concerning the cup: We thank thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David Thy servant, which Thou madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever.” Then the broken bread:
We thank Thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which Thou madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory forever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom; for Thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.
But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, "Give not that which is holy to the dogs.”
The Didache follows the same ritual that took place in Corinth, and includes a thanksgiving after a meal. The document does not mention which food should be eaten for the meal, nor does it list or prescribe the elements, not even wine and bread. The document referrers to the "spiritual food and drink and life eternal through Thy Servant," and it distinguishes the elements from the "food and drink (given) to men for enjoyment that they might give thanks to (God)." Huub van de Sandt proposes that the Eucharist developed into a holy meal due to the fact that the “temple setting was generally seen as the natural context for religious rites, temple and temple thinking were used to describe and define non-temple ritual settings.” The wordking the holy usually refers to sacrificial food and points to ”the divine service and temple sanctity to non-sacrificial communal meals,” As corporate worship in the Old Testament took place within the temple setting, in the same way, the Eucharist meal came to be viewed as a corporate necessity for worship in the Church.
Although the prayers before and after the meal resemble those used during the offering of a Jewish sacrifice, these prayers make no mention of the redemptive work of Christ, nor refer to the remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice as commanded by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23-34. Chapter 10 of the Didache does not even include the word “Christ” which appears only once in the entire document. There is no overt indication in the Didache that communion had developed any efficacious significance. The document does, however, promote baptism as being a prerequisite for partaking of the Eucharist, and more fundamentally, as a visible sign of salvation. The Eucharist had only achieved the status of a sacrifice, with no mention of its possible efficaciousness.
Kelly affirms this view by stating that “the Eucharist was regarded as the distinctly Christian sacrifice from the closing decade of the first century, if not earlier.” Kelly says that believers at that time interpreted Malachi’s prediction (1:10f.) to mean that the Lord would reject the Jewish sacrifices and accept the Gentiles’ “pure offering” instead. Support for this is found in the Didache 14:1 where the Eucharist is given the term thusia, or sacrifice. Justin sanctions this view when he states, "Accordingly, God, anticipating all the sacrifices which we offer through this name, and which Jesus the Christ enjoined us to offer, i.e., in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which are presented by Christians in all places throughout the world, bears witness that they are well-pleasing to Him.” Clearly, Justin connects the Eucharist with the “pure offering” of Malachi. Kelly notes that Justin used the term “thanksgiving” as equivalent to the Eucharist bread and wine, and was offered as a memorial of the passion. Kelly claims that a memorial implies more than mere recollection.
Clement supports this interpretation by paralleling the Church’s “ministers” with the Old Testament priests and Levites, who offered sacrifices. Ignatius thought in terms of a sacrifice, as well. Justin wrote, “We do not receive these as common bread or common drink. But just as our Saviour Jesus Christ was made flesh through the Word of God and had both flesh and blood which has been Eucharistized by the word of prayer from Him (that food which by process of assimilation nourishes our flesh and blood) is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus.” Quite independent of Justin, Irenaeus, in refuting the Gnostics and Docetics, declares a change in the elements, adding that the Eucharist is composed of two elements, “a terrestrial one and a celestial, so that our bodies are no longer commonplace when they receive the Eucharist, since they have the hope of resurrection to eternity.” The technical terms for sacrament (mustarion in Greek and sacramentum in Latin) were never used in recorded history before the Alexandrian fathers and Tertullian respectively, but the early Church Fathers laid the foundation for this added meaning of the Eucharist.
By the end of the second century, the Lord’s command to his followers to “Do this” had become a ritual to “Offer this,” hinting that a sacrificial offering was being performed, not simply a remembrance service. None of the Church Fathers had defined the elements of this sacrifice. Ignatius declared that the “Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father in His goodness raised.” Ignatius uses this interpretation to refute the Docetist’s denial of the Lord’s physical body. Justin and Ignatius attributed a spiritual meaning to the elements of the Eucharist that made them categorically different from common bread and wine. Justin boldly states this change and supports his assertion by comparing the change in the elements with the incarnation itself.
In summary, sacramental theology actually came out of soteriology. Salvation was free to all who would accept it, but different theories arose as to how salvation was transmitted to the individual. Each Church Father built his view of baptism and communion on the teaching of those who had gone before, until both of these rituals became sacraments within the Church.
III. Origin of the Episcopate
This development of sacramental theology probably would never have occurred without the parallel development of the episcopate within the Church. In order for baptism and communion to have achieved their position of necessity within the doctrine of soteriology, the episcopate had to have reached a position of importance and influence within the entire Church. The first Church authority to clearly develop within Christianity were the Jewish Apostles in Acts 6, who gave the congregation the assignment of choosing seven men to carry out the function of solving the food distribution to the widows in the church in Jerusalem at that time. The Apostles’ position and authority are derived from their justification for not personally taking care of the food distribution. By the time of Cornelius’ conversion, the church in Jerusalem had established “elders” (πρεσβυτέρους, Acts 11:30). As Paul and Barnabas established churches in Asia Minor, they appointed “elders” in each local church. Paul wrote to Timothy about the character quality requirements for an “overseer” (ἐπισκοπῆς) in 1 Timothy 3:1. The term ἐπισκοπῆς has been translated “bishop” in some English translations, and “overseer” in others.
As the Church hierarchy developed during the first two centuries, the position of “bishop” rose to prominence, and the “common” elder/prebyter relinquished the ultimate authority for the local church to a bishop. These bishops and their churches faced numerous persecutions during their lifetimes. In their attempt to defend Christianity against the Jewish and pagan worlds, as well as establish unity within the Church, these bishops attributed more and more authority and importance to Christianity’s rituals of baptism and communion. Those bishops who defended the faith through their writings impacted the entire Church with these views of baptism and communion, and the evolving authority structure within the Church contributed to the acceptance by the laity of the growing importance of baptism and communion as sacramental. The increasing combination of clerical power and efficacious sacraments will work together to produce a dominant hierarchy that becomes the gatekeeper for salvation, and written evidence will demonstrate that Clement of Rome was the first bishop to assert that the bishop of Rome held a preeminence over all other bishops.
In a letter to the believers in Corinth, Clement admonished the believers to submit to their bishops as to the Lord and for the sake of unity. This letter establishes the "epiphany of the Roman primacy." Eusebius’ opinion was that this letter is the first official statement of Rome’s consciousness of this entitlement of eminence in the spiritual realm of the Church. He believed that this letter contains the first patristic affirmation of the divine right of the hierarchy.
Clement’s contemporary, Ignatius of Antioch, is the earliest known believer to stress the importance of loyalty to a single bishop in each city. Ignatius placed the bishop in ultimate authority over the presbyters, who were possibly elders, and the deacons. At this stage in the development of the Church’s hierarchy, the bishop would have consulted the other leaders in the local church, but Ignatius supported and recommended that one man in the local church be given the title of bishop and a level of authority, which goes beyond the passages in the New Testament on leadership in a local church.
The biblical text does not support the establishment of different offices in the Church based on the different names in the Scriptures used to describe the local church leaders, but since the Church Fathers borrowed part of their theology from the historical items in the Old Testament, just as Cyprian would do in the future, the Levitical priesthood presented itself as an obvious parallel to an institution that would require a future hierarchy in order to provide a “unity” that could withstand persecution from the pagan world and internal strife of groups competing for ascendancy.
IV. The development of the Episcopate and the continued rise of the Sacramental Theology of the rituals of Baptism and the Eucharist under Cyprian.
By the time Cyprian had become a bishop, Tertullian’s contribution had further advanced theologically the growing unofficial episcopacy and the sacramental function of baptism and communion, and had influenced Cyprian in the process. Tertullian believed that salvation required valid baptism inside the only Church. He worried that in an emergency situation the prerogatives of the bishop might be usurped, since opposition to the episcopacy is the “mother of schism.” Martyrdom was recognized as a fail-safe ticket into heaven, but during Cyprian’s time, this forced a revision of the place that baptism played in defining membership in the Church, which guaranteed salvation, and the part that baptism played in a person’s life who needed forgiveness for having lapsed under persecution.
Concerning the episcopacy, Tertullian had criticized the Church hierarchy on a regular basis. In attacking the Church authorities, Osborn claims that Tertullian foreshadows the protestant reaction to papal claims, “Tertullian has suffered chiefly in the history of the church because of his polemic against bishops in general and the bishop of Rome in particular. Most Christians have said negative things about bishops; but Tertullian said them extremely well.” Tertullian has been called the first Protestant, as the first Christian writer who taught that the church was not a conclave of bishops, but the people of the Holy Spirit.
Although Tertullian had his issues with many Church bishops, Irenaeus’s ecclesiology still impacted Tertullian in a significant manner. Irenaeus taught that a church could only be considered apostolic if it shared the same faith as the apostles. By the end of the second century, this “faith” had developed an ecclesiastical “structure” that was viewed as the only religious entity that could embody the apostolic faith. This embedded belief led Tertullian to continue the third-century ecclesiastical teaching that the monarchial bishops had originated with the apostles. Philip Schaff states that, “While abusing the multitude of bishops, Tertullian indicated the most decisive step in early Christian ecclesiology. In him the church acquired the magnitude which Cyprian was to expound in the classic catholic doctrine which has endured to this present day.” Tertullian’s support of the incipient hierarchical system contributed to his acceptance and advancement of the teachings on baptism and the Eucharist that had been handed down by the Church Fathers who had preceded him.
Tertullian’s legacy shaped Latin Christianity, as well as Cyprian, who apparently never went a day without reading him, and called him “the master.” Tertullian’s connections and initial support of the African expression of Montanistism, which opposed the Church’s developing hierarchy, ostensibly made no impact on Cyprian. Tertullian eventually rejected the Montanist movement, which may be the reason why Cyprian never made any allusions to Montanism. Although Tertullian often criticized many bishops, Cyprian became the Church’s main advocate of the status quo during his lifetime. In Cyprian’s fight against schism and those rebel bishops who attempted to form a Church of their own, Cyprian could have placed these bishops in the same category as those whom Tertullian denounced. Instead of rejecting Tertullian’s actions against the bishopric, Cyprian would have welcomed and agreed with Tertullian’s actions and viewed his own actions as a continuation of Tertullian’s struggle for “the” apostolic Church (since Tertullian never did leave the Church).
During Cyprian’s lifetime, the Church had experienced one of the worst persecutions since the stoning of Stephen. The fallout within the Church from the Emperor Decius’ persecution drove Cyprian to strive for “unity” within the Church. The majority of church “members,” who became known as the “lapsed,” buckled under the pressure of the persecution and either gave up copies of the scriptures or offered worship to the Emperor. Those few who held fast, either experiencing imprisonment or exile, became known as the “confessors.” The question arose as to whether and how the Church should forgive the lapsed and allow them back into fellowship.
Three different groups offered three very different answers to this question. The Laxists provided the least strict answer. This group of “rebellious” bishops leveraged the newly-attained authority of the “martyrs.” These martyrs had not lapsed and had suffered for their faith, ranging from mild persecution to physical death. At some point these “martyrs” gained the authority to grant forgiveness to the lapsed by issuing certificates of forgiveness. The rebellious bishops accepted these certificates and allowed all the lapsed to take the Eucharist and to receive membership back into the Church. These bishops required no penance or repentance on the part of the lapsed.
The strictest group, led by Novatian, refused to grant forgiveness to anyone who lapsed. This group developed their own Church with their own bishops. This group judged the intentions of the individual as well as the outward, visible actions. By this time in the development of sacramental theology, the lapsed believed that they could achieve salvation only by taking the Eucharist and being reunited as members of the Church. Novatian’s position forced these people into the other two groups.
Cyprian took a middle road that allowed the lapsed back into membership of the Church on the basis of two new criteria developed for this historically unique situation. First, Cyprian believed that only God could ultimately see a person’s heart and forgive sin. Therefore Cyprian’s group set up external criteria for evaluating a person’s internal repentance. The lapsed were required to demonstrate repentance by submitting to the “ritual of reconciliation,” doing penance, and allowing the bishops to lay hands on them, which demonstrated obedience to the bishops’ and Cyprian’s leadership. Second, Cyprian developed a restructuring of the social roles, thus “downgrading” the status of each category of the lapsed, but allowing each category to remain in the Church. Anyone who had “fallen” would be placed in a “lower” category of people who still had access to the Eucharist and membership in the Church.
If Cyprian had not developed such a system, the schisms caused by the Laxists and Novatian’s groups would have usurped the authority of Cyprian (and those bishops loyal to him) and placed the entire Church hierarchy in jeopardy. At first, many bishops wanted to reject any and all letters from the martyrs, but in one town after another, riots broke out as the crowds of apostates, armed with their letters from the confessors, besieged the churches demanding re-admission to the Church and to the Eucharist from the local clergy. Cyprian stood his ground and reminded the lapsed that it is the bishop who rules in the Church, and that episcopal rule is the Church's foundation. Cyprian demanded that the act of the martyr had to be an act of intercession with the bishop. The martyr could not intercede on his own. Cyprian rejected the concept of collective notes that provided forgiveness to every lapsed person in an entire area. Cyprian demanded that the martyr specify the name of the person for whom the “indulgence” was sought, and that the person must be someone whom the martyr knew personally. The bishop would then make the final decision. Exceptions were made for the lapsed who were in danger of death and could not wait for the bishop’s decision. In that case, any priest could reconcile him to the Church and the Eucharist. Cyprian eventually won the majority of the Africans over to his view and discredited the rebellious bishops who had wanted to replace him and his faithful bishops.
The Church had never faced these problems before. Cyprian developed his theology to accommodate the situation as he attempted to save the Church from these schisms and the destruction of the Church’s structural hierarchy. Both schisms held views not acceptable to Cyprian’s understanding of Scripture. The Novatians rejected the repentance of the lapsed, and the Laxists made repentance completely unnecessary. Contrary to Novatian, Cyprian accepted the repentance of those willing to demonstrate it through obedience to Cyprian’s criteria. Opposed to the Laxists, he demanded repentance and the visible evidence thereof. He supported his views with various Scriptures and his belief in the primacy of the bishops over the Laxist and Novatian bishops, as well as over all the laity, including the confessors and martyrs. Although each group wanted to achieve prominence (or simply establish their own Church), whatever motive (power or unity), by this time in the development of the understanding of the doctrines of the rituals of baptism and communion and Church leadership, all three groups were functioning under the same presupposition that baptism, the Eucharist, and Church “membership” were necessary for salvation.
During the persecution, staying alive and holding onto one’s property had been paramount in the minds of the lapsed when they had bowed to the Church’s demands. This paper will not attempt to answer the question as to why so many of the Church lapsed, but will instead move forward to demonstrate their motivation for wanting to be readmitted to the Church after the persecution end. The progressive development of the doctrines of baptism, communion, and the episcopate had convinced them that both baptism and the Eucharist were necessary for salvation, and that the bishops alone had the authority to administer these sacraments to the laity, lapsed or not.
Throughout the persecution, Cyprian had contributed to the development of sacramental theology by reinforcing and strengthening the teaching that baptism was necessary for admittance into the Church and that the Eucharist was efficacious. First, he stated that there was only one Church. The possibility of more than one Church had never occurred to anyone (in documented written history) before Cyprian. Ephesians clearly taught that the Church was one body, not a number of splinter groups. However, Cyprian saw no difference between the visible and invisible Church, which would not be promoted until centuries later. Considering the developing character of Church history, it seems impossible that Cyprian could have made that theological distinction before the issue surfaced in all its glory during the Reformation. For Cyprian, the one Church was visible and was the only one that God had established.
In his treatise on unity, he continued to refer to “the” Church as the only possibility for believers to exist in the world. He refers to the Devil seeing his idols rejected by many people coming to “the Church,” so the Devil devised another deception, and “under the very title of the Christian name [. . .] he snatches men from the Church itself [. . .] they still call themselves Christians, and walking in darkness, they think that they have the light.” Cyprian believed that “the source of truth” was in the Church, and nowhere else. He claims that there is an easy proof of this, and he refers to Matthew 16:18-19, making the assumption that these verses can only refer to the visible Church of his day. He admits that the Lord gave all the apostles equal authority, but he hedges this by claiming that God wanted unity within the Church, and therefore “arranged by His authority the origin of that unity, as beginning from one,” referring to Peter, whom Cyprian equates with the Church. He continued his line of reasoning by asking the rhetorical question, “Does he who does not hold this unity of the Church think that he holds the faith?” Cyprian goes beyond equating Peter with the Church and the Church with the faith, to claiming that anyone who does not agree with Cyprian’s view is actually striving against and resisting the Church. Cyprian claims this definition of unity especially for those bishops who align themselves with Cyprian, thereby rejecting those bishops who desired to form an alternative Church with their views of how to treat the situation of the Lapsed.
An additional problem concerning the lapsed would have arisen if Cyprian had not developed a way of retrieving them back into the Church. The Church taught that Christ would accept the confessors when they arrived in heaven. If some of the lapsed were forced to remain outside the Church, and if these lapsed had successfully become confessors during the next persecution, the Church would be put in the untenable position of claiming that anyone outside the Church automatically went to hell. Even if a person outside the Church appeared to confess Christ, and even if he was martyred for his faith, that person was still sent to hell. Only the Church, through the bishops and their rituals, could grant peace and entrance to Christ.
After establishing that there was only one church, Cyprian affirmed that no true sacraments could exist outside the Church, and therefore, there cannot be any salvation outside the Church. This line of reasoning and these statements gave Cyprian the distinction of being the first Church Father to make salvation contingent on participation in the Eucharist ritual, thereby making the Eucharist theologically necessary for salvation. During times of persecution, the majority of the people gave in for various reasons. After the persecution was over, they fought to be readmitted to the Church, because they continued to believe that the Eucharist was necessary for salvation.
Taking the doctrine of the Eucharist further, Cyprian increased its importance in the minds of the recipients by teaching that the purity of the elements, and not just the ritual itself, had to be protected. In his effort to demonstrate God’s view of the purity of the elements, he reported the story of a misuse of the elements of the sacraments. He related how a young girl who had been left behind by her believing parents as they were escaping persecution. In the presence of an idol, the “pagans” gave the girl bread mingled with wine, which had been used previously in a pagan sacrifice (immolation). When the mother recovered the child, she took the girl with her to take part in the Eucharist (labeled as a sacrifice). When the mother brought the girl in with her the deacon began to offer the cup to the girl. Cyprian claimed that
the little child, by the instinct of the divine majesty, turned away its face, compressed its mouth with resisting life, and refused the cup. Still the deacon persisted, and, although against her efforts, forced on her some of the sacrament of the cup. Then there followed a sobbing and vomiting. In a profane body and mouth the Eucharist could not remain; the draught sanctified in the blood of the Lord burst forth from the polluted stomach.
Apparently Cyprian believed that the elements in the Eucharist were so holy, that God was judging this young girl for involuntarily participating in two religious services that had been forced on her.
In addition to his views of the existence of just one Church and the purity of the Eucharist, Cyprian also believed, in order to preserve Church unity, that he needed to protect the structural hierarchy of the Church. Throughout Cyprian’s argument in “On the Unity of the Church,” he equates “the faith” and “the truth” and “the Church itself” with “the gospel of Christ.” As noted above, he felt compelled to establish the Church as the only source of truth, which placed the power of salvation in the Church, not just in the faith of the individual. Cyprian states, “how can we possess immortality, unless we keep those commands of Christ.” This statement could possibly indicate his view that the believer’s eternal security rests in continued obedience to the Church.
In his closing remarks in On the Lapsed, Cyprian challenged the lapsed to visibly repent, so that “after losing the raiment of Christ, you must be willing to have no clothing; after the devil’s mean, you must prefer fasting; be earnest in righteous works, whereby sins may be purged; frequently apply yourself to almsgiving, whereby souls are freed from death.” Cyprian believed that only God could forgive sins, but these comments seem to go beyond a lack of what Evangelicals have come to believe as “eternal security.” A lack of such eternal security would motivate a believer to keep returning in renewed faith to the Lord to regain salvation. Cyprian’s statements border on salvation by works, at least for those who lapsed and needed to be restored. Further indication of this teaching comes from Cyprian’s view that loyalty to the Church was required to win God’s forgiveness. In effect, a lapsed person had to be “re-saved.” The bishops, not the faith of the lapsed, had to “strengthen these penitents with the blood of Christ [Eucharist] and impart to them the gift of the Spirit.” Cyprian went further to claim that anyone who had received the Eucharist from a failed priest would lose their salvation.
This situation naturally led to the “insecurity” of the believer. Since submitting to the bishops only promised a hearing in heaven, Christ might overturn the forgiveness granted the lapsed by the bishops if Christ’s omniscience revealed an unrepentant heart within a hypocritical church member,. Therefore, if a person left the Church, he was damned, whereas if he stayed in the Church, he might receive eternal life after death. From a scriptural perspective, the believer’s faith results in his “security” of eternal life, whereas the believer’s “assurance” depends on his knowledge and understanding of the biblical witness of the Holy Spirit to the believer. Cyprian’s soteriology fostered a complete lack of assurance of salvation by forcing its members to look to the hierarchy of the Church for its salvation.
Cyprian furthered this attachment to the Church by equating the New Testament ministry of bishops with the Old Testament priesthood, which strengthened sacerdotalism. The bishop became a sacrificing priest in the order of the Jewish priesthood. To Cyprian it seemed logical that since Christ had begun the Jewish priesthood, the Hebrew priests would become Christian priests. This new terminology was applied to both baptism and the Eucharist, and Cyprian claimed that the bishop was the only celebrant. Eventually, Cyprian and the Church would champion a one-bishop-per-church system of church government.
The progressive sacramental teaching on baptism and the Eucharist, and the developing sacerdotal aspect of the embryonic episcopacy, as well as the unique situation of the lapsed and the errant bishops, prohibited Cyprian from recognizing the possibility that true believers could exist outside the official structure of the Church, as his famous statement demonstrates: “He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” Adding to his allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, Cyprian’s hermeneutics selectively left out the Lord’s words to His disciples in Luke 9:49-50, “Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side.” Cyprian’s desire to protect the unity of the Church resulted in firmly establishing sacerdotalism, which elevated the authority of the structural Church hierarchy even higher, and eventually replaced the priesthood of the believer (1 Peter 2) with clericalism, a doctrine that promotes the separation of the clergy and laity. Sacerdotalism forced the laity to place their spiritual lives in the hands of the bishops. Cyprian even wrote, “Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop; and if any one be not with the bishop, then he is not in the Church.”
V. Summary
The believers during the first three hundred years faced severe persistent persecutions that challenged them to present the Gospel of love and peace to a hostile world full of hatred that did not want to give up its own religions. Two major objectives surfaced for the Church from these persecutions. The believers needed to evangelize the pagans by standing up for their faith, and the Church needed to protect the believers from schisms within the Church. Many believers realized that unity was essential during times of persecution. Before the end of the first century, the local churches had developed a system of bishops who would represent each local church and provide the teaching and shepherding of the flocks. Although these bishops worked alongside of elders, the position of bishop gained an authority over the other leaders in the local church. These bishops wrote their theological treatises in order to defend and teach the Church. The believers listened to their bishops. By the end of the second century, these bishops had developed the doctrines of baptism and communion to the point of turning them into sacraments that were considered necessary for admittance into the Church and for salvation.
Tertullian contributed to the sacramental and sacerdotal theology of the Church, and Cyprian accepted these views and contributed his own modifications to fit his own unique historical situation. Cyprian’s worldview contained only one Church, and especially during those times between persecutions, he believed that he was called by God as a bishop to protect the unity of that one Church. He expanded Tertullian’s views on the authority of the Church’s structural hierarchy, and his impact led to a sacerdotal system that established the episcopacy as necessary for salvation.
On the positive side, Cyprian demanded true repentance before performing the rituals, requiring the lapsed to “repent abundantly, prove the sorrow of a grieving and lamenting mind.” For Cyprian, failure to repent of a sin closed the way of atonement. This author does not believe that Cyprian was on a power trip. Cyprian studied and wrote and taught from the Scriptures his entire life. Methodologically, many, many of the Church Fathers resorted to allegorical interpretation for numerous reasons. Cyprian was no exception. He employed extensive allegory from the Old Testament in order to promote the developed doctrines of baptism and communion, along with the increased power of the episcopacy, for the purpose of bringing unity to the Church he loved.
Reflecting on the early Church Fathers should help the Church today recognize the influence that their historical contexts had on the process of developing their theology as they sought to protect the Church from heresy and help the Church through persecution. The generally accepted hermeneutics of allegorical interpretations combined with the seemingly unchallenged acceptance of the theological views of previous (like-minded) theologians led the Church Fathers to build an exclusively hierarchical system that alone had the authority to administer the (apparently) essential “sacraments” for salvation. Studying this entire process that led to those conclusions should motivate theologians today to apply Second Timothy 2:15 more diligently, while avoiding the territorialism that leads to the same results experienced by the early Church.
Bibliography
Audet, J. P. La Didache; Instructions des Aportres. Paris: Etudes Bibliques, Gabalda, 1958.
Barnes, Timothy D. Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.
Burres, Virginia. "Baptismal Rites and Architecture." In Late Ancient Christianity: A People's History of Christianity, by Robin M. Jensen, 125. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2005.
Clement. 2 Clement. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/2clement-lightfoot.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
—. Letter to the Corinthians. http://www.dabar.org/ChurchHistory/Fathers/Clement_Rome/4601GG46enuine-Corinthians.html#46-6. (accessed July 15, 2012).
Cyprian. On the Lapsed. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.v.i.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
—. The Treatises of Cyprian, Treatise I, On the Unity of the Church. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.v.i.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
—. Unity of the Church. Epistle of Barnabas. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/barnabas-lightfoot.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
Ignatius. Ignatius to Polycarp. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-polycarp-lightfoot.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
—. Ignatius to the Philadelphians. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-philadelphians-lightfoot.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
—. The Epistle of St Ignatius of Antioch to the Magnesians. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-magnesians-hoole.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
Irenaeus. Adversus haereses. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book4.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
—. St. Irenaeus: The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/irenaeus/demonstr.preaching_introduction_III.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
Kelly, J. N. D. Early Christian Doctrines. New York: Harper Collins , 1978.
Lightfoot, J. B., trans. The Didache.
LXX.
Martyr, Justin. First Apology. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-firstapology.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
—. Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-dialoguetrypho.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
Milavec, Aaron. "The Purifying Confession of Failings Required by the Didache's Eucharistic Sacrifice." Biblical Theology Bulletin 33.
Osborn, Eric. Tertullian: First Theologian of the West. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Richardson, C. C. Early Christian Fathers. Philadelphia: Macmillan, 1970.
Robinson, John A. T. Redating the New Testament. SCM Press, 1976.
Sandt, Huub van de. "Why does the Didache Conceive of the Eucharist as a Holy Meal?" Vigiliae Christianae (brill.nl.vc), no. 65 (2011): 1-20.
Shepherd of Hermas. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/shepherd-lightfoot.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
Roberts, ed. The Didache. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.html (accessed July 15, 2012).
Virkler, Henry A., and Karelynne Avayo. Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007.