I
Isa_Almisry
Guest
In september, 256, a yet larger council assembled at Carthage. All agreed with Cyprian; Stephen was not mentioned; and some writers have even supposed that the council met before Stephen’s letter was received (so Ritschl, Grisar, Ernst, Bardenhewer). Cyprian did not wish the responsibility to be all his own. He declared that no one made himself a bishop of bishops, and that all must give their true opinion. The vote of each was therefore given in a short speech, and the minutes have come down to us in the Cyprianic correspondence under the title of “Sententiae Episcoporum”. But the messengers sent to Rome with this document were refused an audience and even denied all hospitality by the pope. They returned incontinently to Carthage, and Cyprian tried for support from the East. He wrote to the famous Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Firmilian, sending him the treatise “De Unitate” and the correspondence on the baptismal question. By the middle of November Firmilian’s reply had arrived, and it has come down to us in a translation made at the time in Africa. Its tone is, if possible, more violent than that of Cyprian. (See FIRMILIAN.)
When the baptismal controversy arose, St. Cyprian wished to gain support from the Churches of the East against Pope Stephen for his own decision to rebaptize all heretics who returned to the Church. At the end of the summer of 256, he sent the deacon Rogatian to Firmilian with a letter, together with the documents on the subject–letters of the pope, of his own, and of his council at Carthage in the spring, and the treatise “De Eccl. Cath. Unitate”. Firmilian’s reply was received at Charthage about the middle of November. It is a long letter, even more bitter and violent than that of Cyprian to Pompeius. It has come down to us in a translation made, no doubt, under St. Cyprian’s direction, and apparently very literal, as it abounds in Græcisms (Ep. lxxv among St. Cyprian’s letters). St. Cpyrian’s arguments against St. Stephen are reiterated and reinforced, and the treatise on Unity is laid under contribution. It is particularly interesting to note that the famous fourth chapter of that treatise must have been before the writer of the letter in its original form, and not in the alternative “Roman” form (c. xvi). It is the literal truth when Firmilian says: “We have received your writings as our own, and have committed them to memory by repeated reading” (c. iv)
The reasoning against the validity of heretical baptism is mainly that of St. Cyprian, that those who are outside the Church and have not the Holy Spirit cannot admit others to the Church or give what they do not possess. Firmilian is fond of dilemmas: for instance, either the heretics do not give the Holy Ghost, in which case rebaptism is necessary, or else they do give it, in which case Stephen should not enjoin the laying on of hands. It is important that Firmilian enables us to gather much of the drift of St. Stephen’s letter. It is “ridiculous” that Stephen demanded nothing but the use of the Trinitarian formula. He had appealed to tradition from St. Peter and St. Paul: this is an insult to the Apostles, cries Firmilian, for they execrated heretics. Besides (this is from Cyprian, Ep. lxxiv, 2), “no one could be so silly as to believe this”, for the heretics are all later than the Apostles! And Rome has not preserved the Apostolic traditions unchanged, for it differs from Jerusalem as to the observances at Easter and as to other mysteries. “I am justly indignant with Stephen’s obvious and manifest silliness, that he so boasts of his position, and claims that he is the successor of St. Peter on whom were laid the foundations of the Church; yet he brings in many other rocks, and erects new buildings of many Churches when he defends with his authority the baptism conferred by heretics; for those who are baptized are without doubt numbered in the Church, and he who approves their baptism affirms that there is among them a Church of the baptized.… Stephen, who declares that he has the Chair of Peter by succession, is excited by no zeal against heretics” (c. xvii). “You have cut yourself off–do not mistake–since he is the true schismatic who makes himself an apostate from the communion of ecclesiastical unity. For in thinking that all can be excommunicated by you, you have cut off yourself alone from the communion of all” (c. xxiv).
newadvent.org/cathen/06080b.htm
newadvent.org/cathen/04583b.htm
Does anyone els feel like they are about to be misled when Augustine is quoted?
I’m sure I have no idea what you are talking about 