The Council of Carthage held under Cyprian - A.D. 257

Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival

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Notes.

Zonaras.

These are the opinions therefore of the fathers, which assembled in council with the great Cyprian: but they do not apply to all heretics nor to all schismatics. For the Second Ecumenical Council, as we have just said [i.e. in the Preface he has placed to the acts of the synod. Vide L. and C., Conc., Tom. i., col. 801] makes an exception of some heretics, and give its sanction to their reception without baptism, only requiring their anointing with the holy chrism, and then anathematizing at the same time their own and all heresies.

Balsamon does not print the acts of the Council at all but only the letter of St. Cyprian (Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. I., col. 799.) I have not thought it worth while to place here the remarks of the eighty-six bishops, hos me anankaiai, hoia mede energousai, to quote Zonaras's words.

Binius.

The allusion here is to the decree of Stephen, who was wont, according to the custom of his elders, to be styled "Bishop of bishops," and because he had acrimoniously threatened excommunication to all not agreeing with him.

On the disputed historical fact as to whether St. Cyprian died in or out of the communion of the See of Rome the reader will do well to consult Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome.

I place here St. Cyprian's Seventieth Epistle in the Oxford Translation (Epistle of St. Cyprian, pp. 232 et seqq.). This letter is addressed to Januarius, Satterninus, etc., and is headed in Beveridge's Synodicon "Canon I."

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