Question 4. The Decision on the Lapsed.

The primary question before the Council had been what should be the position of the Lapsed? Its determination had been postponed first to the examination of the case of Felicissimus, and secondly to the unexpected outbreak of division in the election to the Roman bishopric. Both of these nevertheless depended on the solution of the original issue. Though the latter involved questions so much wider, yet its origin was in the identical question before the Council; and its present aspect illustrated the policy of free and early conciliar action such as had been concerted in Africa. The decision on Felicissimus was as we have seen a necessary preliminary to that action. These two decisions indeed had cleared off the extreme views on either side. Neither the lax nor the purist view of Discipline could now be reopened. Cyprian lets us know that the discussion was nevertheless a prolonged and earnest one', that the basis assumed alike by the advocates of lenity and of severity was an examination of Scripture, and that they conceived as a distinct ideal for their guidance the mercifulness of the character of God'.

Cyprian had bestowed deepest attention on the subject. He had developed his conclusions in his elaborate paper ON THE LAPSED which he read to an audience who cannot have been less moved by the simple pathos with which it fixed the tragedies passing before their eyes, than they were strengthened by its wisdom and charity. Nevertheless their leaning was to a course still milder than he suggested, and

1 Ep. 55. 6 Scripturis [diu] ex utraque parte prolatis,' Ep. 54. 3 'diu multumque tractatu inter nos habito.'

2 The verbal resemblance of 54. 3 and 55. 11, 25 shews that the date of the letter to Antonian was very soon after the events, and therefore brings

the Roman Council mentioned Ep. 55. 6 to June or July.

3

Ep. 54. 4, Ep. 55. 5, 6. The libelli read to the Council were the De Lapsis and De Unitate. See pp. 174, sqq. on

the former.

they were much less disposed than he to give the martyrs a voice in their decisions. The primate was loyal to the deliberative power he had evoked.

The encyclical which contained the resolutions is lost1. But its gist, and even its minutiæ, are extricable from an admirable letter of Cyprian. The Epistle to Antonian is in fact a pamphlet in length not far short of that On the Lapsed. Antonian was an African bishop who, while forwarding letters of adherence to Cornelius, privately acquainted Cyprian with certain difficulties which he had felt in doing so, and received from him, after the Council closed, a restatement of the whole

case.

It would seem then that Cyprian in council abandoned more than one of his own suggestions. He admitted that the postponement until death of the reconciliation of the Libellatics was a severity only applicable to the very hour of persecution, when retrieval through a new confession was yet an open though terrible way. Certainly if penance was ever so worked in times of 'Peace' this could only be because Lapse was infrequent and Return more infrequent still.

After peace had been once restored to a Church which had suffered from Lapse upon a great scale, the sentence of life-long exclusion was felt to be a cruel and an impolitic' measure. For the utilitarian aspect of the question was a really noble one. In the later struggle with the Donatists Optatus warns them that the 'Passion for Innocence' in the Church while practically unattainable could not, even if attained, be higher than the 'Utility of Unity.' Upon the natural tendency towards strictness felt by the unfallen he

1 Such a document is indicated in Ep. ad Anton. 55. 6. For 'singula placitorum capita' has no relation to the form, nor 'ut examinarentur' to the contents of De Lapsis. This letter to Antonian is prior to the Second Council, A.D. 252, since it treats of the

restoration of the Libellatici only, not of the Lapsed.

2 Necessitati temporum succubuisse et multorum saluti providendum putasse, Ep. 55. 7.

3 Opt. vii. 3.

adds, 'The keys of Heaven were committed to the Apostle 'who fell, not to so many who stood firm; it was ordained 'that a Sinner should open the gate to Innocence, for an 'Innocent one might have closed it against Sinners.'

Considering therefore that penance without hope of mitigation could have no practical value, but that a return to pagan life or at best an adherence to some more tolerant schism would be its natural result, while on the other hand every spiritual help was requisite for persons who might shortly be exposed again to persecution', it was by this Council ruled:

I. That an individual examination should be held not only of the facts, but further into the motives or inducements which had been presented to the weakness of the Libellatici.

II. That the Lapsed who had not sacrificed should be restored after a considerable term of penance, and after public application to their bishop for restoration'.

III. That those who had sacrificed should be restored at the hour of death" if they had continued penitent.

IV. That such as had refused penance and public confession until they were in fear of death should not then be received".

The Council did not rule, but Cyprian assumes, that one reconciled as a dying man would not be again excluded if he

recovered. With a humour which he sometimes exercises upon over-rigidity he observes that the man cannot be required to die, or his spiritual guide to insist on his decease, in order to complete the conditions of his restoration. In his own strain he adds that, if GOD Himself respites him this is one more mark of the Divine pity and fatherliness. Added life takes up the pledge of holy life1.

The Resolutions were communicated to Cornelius, to Fabius patriarch of Antioch, and doubtless to the other great sees, and the Council then broke up. It was the June3 of A.D. 251.

II.

Advance of Novatianism-Return of The Confessors.

Meantime intimation had been sent to Africa by Cornelius that his rivals shewed no disposition to sit tamely down under the rejection of their embassy. A confessor Augendus who conveyed this news was speedily followed by Nicephorus, the acolyte, bearing a private note with fuller particulars of the energetic movement with which Cyprian was to be pressed home'.

A second Novatianist delegacy had already started, and in it the principal 'authors' of the movement. Primus and Dionysius we know but by name; Nicostratus was a freedman, probably rich; he had been one of the powerful Seven Deacons of Rome; after sharing the prison of Moyses and Maximus he was now permanently alienated from the

1 Compare Cyprian's handling above. Fechtrup, p. 127, mistakenly attributes the provision to the Council; and points out that other Councils were more severe; e.g. Nicæn. can. 13. Arausic. 1. can. 3. Epaon. can. 36. Perhaps frauds compelled them to be so.

Eus. vi. 43. Cyp. Epp. 55. 6, 45• 4·

3 Or July, Lips. pp. 205, 6. Yet scarcely so, considering the length which this would give to the Carthaginian Council which met in April, and the unhealthy season to which it would throw the Roman Council. 4 Ep. 50.

Church. He is accused by Cornelius not only of embezzling church funds (which might mean that he had carried sums over to what he held to be the true succession), but also of having defrauded the patroness to whom he owed his freedom'. Such reports however easily passed into circulation, and perhaps shew little but that he had funds at disposal, just as the accusations of avarice against Novatus have doubtless to do with the pecuniary organization of the sect2.

Still more notable delegates were the Bishop Evaristus3, who had been one of Novatian's consecrators, and to whom his 'Commons' had instantly elected a successor; and lastly Novatus himself, once more on his own ground, fortified by his success at Rome*.

The ground was however less secure behind him than he trusted. Cyprian does not hesitate to ascribe the next act of the drama in some measure to the withdrawal from Rome of his great influence". The very day after he reached Carthage with his colleagues, the acolyte of Cornelius sailed into the port, and with the warning we have mentioned he delivered a second letter. He had in fact hurried on board 'the very 'hour, the very moment,' says Cornelius, 'of the conclusion 'of a Station in which Maximus, with his fellow confessors

1 Ep. 50. The Liberian Catalogue states that he was made bishop in Africa, which is possible, but may be due to a confusion with Maximus.

2 Ep. 50, avaritia Hartel for common reading pravitate; cf. Ep. 52. 2.

3 See p. 136.

4 The omission of the name of Novatian, designated only 'hujus scelerati hominis,' led some to regard this (50) letter of Cornelius as a fragment. Coustant however (Routh, R. Sac. III. pp. 31-33) shewed that to drop the name of objectionable persons was a common practice with popes and others. Routh

observes that the name of Novatian is never mentioned by Cornelius in any letter. He employs various periphrases, and in one place, to avoid speaking of his baptism, has περιχυθεὶς ἔλαβεν without rò Bánтioμa (Eus. vi. 43, Routh, III. p. 67). Cyprian, on the other hand, who had not the bitterness of Cornelius, evidently plays on the concurrence of names and acts, 'Novatiani et Novati novas...machinas' 'Novatus... rerum novarum semper cupidus.' Ep. 52. 1, 2.