St. Cyprian

0:00You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustan Institute, an Apostlead helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith. Hello everyone and welcome back to Catholic Saints. My name is Taylor Camp. I'm the director of the program. And with me today is Dr. John Seahorn, the academic dean at the Graduate School of Theology, and a teacher of Catholic theology. Is there anything else you would like to say in an introductory sense before we get into our scene? Just that I'm always happy to be with you Taylor. I'm happy to be with you too. And I think folks out there that John might mean that sincerely. I'd say 80% since here. 85. The other 15% of him would like to be reading books. But we are going to talk about something that you do read about in books, which is Saint Siprian. That's right. Tell us about Saint Siprian. What do you know about Saint Siprian Taylor? You didn't have my course. I did, I did. Okay, so he's a Saint for one. He was early.

1:00That's a good start. Thank you. Feel good about that one. Yeah. He was an early Saint. I don't know his exact date, so I'm going to guess and you can correct me. I think that he was around the 4th century. Fifth. Third. Third. Yeah, he is pretty early. So we don't know a lot about his early life. He was born probably right maybe after the 3rd century. So around 202 or so. It was from North Africa, okay, which of course is part of the Roman Empire at this time. He's from the main city of North Africa, Carthage, right, which had been a kind of classical enemy of Rome in the centuries before Christ, but now was an important city in the empire. He had kind of a classical pagan upbringing. He was not raised in a Christian family, but eventually had a conversion, probably in his 40s. So around conversion. Yeah, a lay conversion around 246, we think he was baptized.

2:03I keep saying around because we really just don't know a lot about his life before he became a bishop. So presumably we don't know why he converted what brought it about. Nope, not a lot. Okay, not a lot. So he becomes Catholic and about 246 and very quickly is elevated to the Episcopacy. So he becomes bishop around 248. Okay. Yeah, which is unusual. But less unusual than it might be now. Yes, which would might be interesting for people to hear that. But yeah, we have we have a life of Cyprian that doesn't give us many details, but by a deacon named Ponzius. I actually can't remember. Okay. Even I forget things too. That's good. He makes it makes us all feel better. Well, I guess so. So we'll call him Ponzi. Ponzi the deacon. He actually sort of apologizes for the fact that Cyprian was made a bishop so quickly because Paul in first Timothy says that bishop shouldn't be recent conversies. He's like, well, he's the exception that proves the rule because he was pretty great.

3:04Him and Ambrose. Yeah, Ambrose was even more extreme. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. Okay. So he becomes Catholic. He is quickly ordained to be a bishop. Mm-hmm. What happens next? Oh my gosh. All heck breaks loose. Okay. So we think he became a bishop in about 248. The following year, there was a new Roman emperor, a guy named D.C.S. Okay. And D.C.S. was sort of kind of an old school military man. And the empire that he stepped into as ruler was kind of an abit of disarray. There were, it's known as the crisis of the third century. And it gets pretty complicated. But it's a time of real turmoil. And D.C.S. is like, you know what we need? We need some good old time religion. Mm-hmm. Right. And in his case, surprising from them, Burr, it, I guess, it would depend on what he means by old time religion.

4:06Well, he means Roman religion. Oh, there he means pagan religion. It's not good. I take it back. Yeah. And so this, this becomes, in effect, the first empire-wide persecution of Christians. Right. Why? Because D.C.S. orders that all citizens have to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods. Right. And the most important thing is what's called, it was called a libellus, like a little certificate, saying that they had done so. Related to that. So it's interesting, and I do, some of these things are coming back from your class. It is good. But that, this, correct me if I'm wrong, it's not like the emperor is coming forth and saying necessarily like, we need to deepen our faith in the gods. Per se, he's, he's trying to figure out how do I unite people? How do I pull this? Yes. I also think, I mean, D.C.S. as kind of a good conservative Roman thought of the relationship with the gods as kind of one of appeasement that would earn their protection.

5:11Right. So things are going badly. Well, we need to appease the gods. We need to all be on the same page and honoring the gods so that the gods will honor us, so to speak, by supplying peace and tranquility. So he does kind of have a vertical and horizontal view of it. Vertical in the sense of we need to appease the gods. That'll bring us back to some stable ground. But then also knowing like you can really unite people through belief. For sure. And I do think it's fair to say that in the empire, both of those dimensions were somewhat understood. So we often talk about the pox Romana, right, the Roman peace. But they would also have the pox de Oram, the peace of the gods. Right. The idea that this peace, this Concord prosperity in the empire was a gift from the gods. Interesting. Okay. So Cyprian is made a bishop. This is a time of chaos, D.C.S. becomes the emperor. He wants to implement some of these details. Yeah. A edict that goes out end of 249 beginning of 250 somewhere in there.

6:13Okay. Everyone has to offer sacrifice. Offer sacrifice. Okay. So what does that mean for Cyprian? Or the people of God? Oh, what a headache. Yeah. Right. So it's actually kind of interesting, even though we think of the ancient church as a kind of time of constant persecutions, and there had been persecutions in the preceding decades, but there have been several decades at this point of relative peace. And it is amazing, Taylor, as I think many of us can relate to, how quickly we become complacent. Yeah. Right. And so Cyprian actually has to deal with a flock, who, not all of whom were really ready for a persecution. Right. Because what did this mean? Well, it might actually mean red martyrdom. Right. It might mean fleeing. And they weren't going to like chase you down necessarily, but they were going to confiscate your property. Okay. So Cyprian himself was not martyred at this time, because he decided it was important for him to be available for his flock.

7:15When things sort of subsided. And he was criticized for this. And so he defended that decision. And as we'll get to later, he was eventually martyred, so he kind of proved himself that it wasn't out of cowardice that he fled. But that net giving up all of his possessions, they were all seized by the government. Which is a true test. Like, for sure. All of us are working, we'd like to think, are working toward being detached from this world. But it's like when it when it really hits you, you're like, oh, whoa, what am I willing to give up from a material sense from a location of my home, of relationships, of whatever that. The idea of the thing and the reality of the thing are often completely different. For sure. And you know, it's interesting that Cyprian even blames clergy for this too. He says even bishops. He says we're acting like he says it's basically managers of worldly affairs. Interesting. They were more busy with sort of secular concerns than they were with feeding with feeding the flock of Christ and with preparing themselves to be leaders.

8:22Now there was a lot of heroism. Okay. So so Cyprian fled and then came back his contemporary who is the bishop of Alexandria, the other major city in Africa, right in Egypt. He also fled Dionysus of Alexandria. He's also he also became a saint. Okay. The Roman bishop, the pope at the time, Fabian did not flee and he was martyred as was his successor. Right. So there was a lot of heroism, but there was also a lot of mediocrity. And so one of the big challenges of Cyprian's career was what do you do putting the pieces back together because he comes back to Carthage. And you do have martyrs, you have others who were put in prison, but weren't actually martyred. Some of them are actually causing problem because of all the prestige that attaches to that. Right. On top of that, you have Christians who had apostatized, who had just given in and offered sacrifice. You had others who had like paid someone off to forge a lebellis for them to forge a certificate so that they wouldn't get, they wouldn't get in trouble.

9:32Right. How do you kind of deal with all these? And this is one of the things that I think we can really admire from Cyprian is kind of his, his hard knows pastoral sensibilities. And you actually see him negotiating these things with a lot of different viewpoints around the table. I mean, obviously, you know, passions can be heightened in a situation like this, a crisis like this. And he's trying to find the right path between the rigorous who are like, look, if you apostatized, you're done for. And there were, this actually led to a schism. There was a rigorous group called the novationists who actually said that the church cannot reconcile people who've apostatized. Right. Cyprian is like, no, that's not true. But on the other hand, you had people who were laxists who were sort of like, oh well, forgiven, forget. Yeah. And so, you sort of move on. It was a tough situation. And Cyprian is like, you're not taking seriously enough the fact that you betrayed the Lord who shed his blood for you.

10:34In a public sense, yeah. In a public sense, right. And so he talks a lot about the job of a real pastor to be like a good doctor and to apply the right medicine, even when the patient doesn't really want to take his medicine. And it might be painful, right. But that ultimately, it's for their health and salvation. Yeah. You got all of the saints, one of the great gifts of the saints is that they take the gospel truths and then bring them into whatever the present day circumstances is, which is, and this is such a complex thing. And I do feel like it's far afield for at least a lot of us that are in America because we're not facing a kind of red martyrdom threat. But when you look at like the layers of complexity here, when you're talking about the rigorous and the laxas and the apostatize and the people who paid off you, people who outright publicly participate in a thing, then you take a step back and you've got people who allowed it to be presented as if they did, but in fact they didn't, but that's still a public witness.

11:35And then you have like the prestige of the people who were martyred. It's, it is a, it's a great gift to be able to rely on the saints to help us. How do we interpret the things in front of us as they relate to the truths that are never changing? Yeah. No, that's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that he sort of, you know, tried to guide the church through that. And it really that occupied a lot of the rest of his life, right. So, he was in, there were controversies that arose from this. And he even butted heads with the Pope over, over dealing with, with some of these issues. And it's interesting that we've canonized Cyprian along with Pope Stephen, whom he butted heads with, Pope Stephen's position was the right one. And, but you sort of see this that these are men who, who deeply understand themselves to be responsible to the Lord for the tasks that they've been given as bishops. Right. And so even when they have theological disagreements about, about how to kind of deal, and there, there is theology that, that underlies these pastoral decisions.

12:42Right. Right. Real pastoral theology is never something separate from, from doctrine. And, and so it's, it is kind of beautiful too to see both of them canonized. Yeah. And, and in a sense, subject to the church. For sure. Yeah. It's exactly like that even in the midst of, we're talking about two saints that neither one in themselves carried the authoritative endpoint of where doctrine lies. They contributed to it, but it was actually within the clash of them that the church works out where things stand. Yeah. No, I think, I think that's well said. And we won't get into the details, not because they're not interesting. They're very interesting. And I love to talk about them, but it would take us too far afield. And I think there are some other things we can learn from Cyprian. I do want to just mention, as I said earlier, that he, he was eventually martyred. So there was another persecution that broke out in 257. He didn't flee. This time he was arrested in first exiled. And then he was put to death by the sword in 258.

13:44And the deacon that I was calling ponte since I still can't remember his exact name. It's actually really moving when he talks about that day and how it was a hot day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. And he sort of saw a beauty in that the radiance of the sun showing the true victory that Cyprian would enjoy. That's cool. But then how they had to they marched in this place and he sat down. He was sweating. But that he just sort of took the suffering and he's like, look, I'm about to die. It doesn't matter. And then just his self possession that he blindfolded himself. And then had to kind of give encouragement to the executioner who was kind of feeling shaky. And then it seems to be the case that those who are sort of there to honor Bishop Cyprian were able to get his garments, which were soaked in his blood. Well able to penetrate those as relics. And he he's the most famous martyr of North Africa. He was actually the first, I believe the first priest or bishop of Carthage to be martyred.

14:46And so it was a huge cult of Saint Cyprian into the four century and later. So we have a lot of like Augustine talking about Cyprian because Cyprian was sort of the greatest local hero. That's great. Well, we are wrapping up here, Dr. Seymour. Would you mind giving just maybe a couple of final points of reflection or things that we can. From things we talked about today from Saint Cyprian that we could kind of carry into world and thought and reflection today. Yeah, maybe let me let me peel back a little bit kind of the surface of what we were talking about. And it seems to me that if you really want to see Cyprian's heart, it's important to read a lot of his works. But one that one that to me has been very valuable is a treatise he wrote on the Lord's Prayer. He is a kind of commenter in the Lord's Prayer. What does it mean for Christians to pray? Why do we pray this way? What do we mean by each of these petitions? And maybe just take three quick glances at it. Right. The first is he really emphasises the fact that we call God our Father and that we can only do so because of our baptism, because of our rebirth into the sunship of Jesus.

15:56Who not only give us the words to pray but whose voice we pray in. Right. Only Christ can truly call God our Father. And that becomes the kind of basis for everything else that Cyprian understands about himself and the church is that sharing Christ's sunship. Another really beautiful moment in the treatise is when he talks about the petition, give us the stair daily bread. He interprets that very strongly eucharistically. Right. So it seems that at least some Christians were receiving communion every day already in the third century in North Africa. But he says something interesting is challenging to me. He says, okay, so if you're going to pray for that every day, that means you're also praying that you wouldn't be separated from Christ's body by a serious sin. And then at the very end, he recognised we do commit sins every day. So he's talking about, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against. Not quite the end. And there he talks about our need for forgiveness but also our need to extend it to others. And this brings us to like one of the most profound things about Saint Cyprian that I think we can all receive and that the church actually in recent times has invited us to contemplate.

17:04And it's this, as we forgive those who trespass against us, he points to Jesus is teaching in Matthew 5 about have you're going to offer your sacrifice and you realise your brother is something against you to go and be reconciled first. Saint Cyprian says the greatest sacrifice that we offer is our peace and harmony with one another. Why? Because as Christians, as the church, we are a people who are made one in the unity of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. That's a line that's actually quoted in the second Vatican Council in the document on the church inviting us to recognise that we're not just a club, we're not just people who agree with each other, we're not even just people who've committed to be nice to each other or committed to a certain way of life, we're people who are made one by the gracious share of the Trinity's own you. And this should mark our very existence, the church is a gift, it's not something that we've accomplished. That is such a great kind of call because it's something I wouldn't say that that is something I've heard that explicitly, that one of the fundamental aspects of being a Christian as it relates to communion, as it relates to confession is living in that unity with one another.

18:19That we often talk about the importance of unity of doctrine of faith, which is of course so important, but that unity of mind and heart and body, that is so dependent upon our offering that forgiveness to others, allowing ourselves to ask for forgiveness to God first and but also to each other. That is just a, yeah, it's a powerful call. And receiving our identity precisely from the church, yeah, Sipprians also famous for saying that you can't have God for your father if you don't have the church for your mother. Should write that down, right? Great. And think about the way that we ought to honor our mother. Yep, that is beautiful. Dr. Seerun, thank you. This was a great kind of quick glance at Sipprian, we can never cover the saints to the extent that we would like. Any final comments? No, that's just as for Sipprians prayers and pray for that for faithfulness to the church that he gave his life for and to his Lord. Amen.

19:19Well, thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time on Catholic Saints. Thank you for being a dedicated listener to the Catholic Saints podcast. Your support truly uplifts us. For those seeking additional thought-provoking content, go to form.org. It's a platform brimming with resources, including insightful videos that align seamlessly with our podcast themes. If you're finding value in our podcast, please consider taking a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback serves as a cornerstone for our growth and outreach. Thank you.