Saint Cyprian of Carthage

Saint Cyprian was bishop of Carthage in the middle of the third century. He led his Church through persecution, plague, and division, and his letters and treatises, above all the work On the Unity of the Catholic Church, are still read today. In 258 he died a martyr. The Church commemorates him on September 16 in a single celebration together with Saint Cornelius, pope, whose friend and defender he was.

He was born in Carthage into a wealthy pagan family; the year of his birth is not known. He became famous as a rhetorician and orator. He converted at the age of thirty-five, brought to the faith by an aged priest named Caecilian. While still a catechumen he gave away his property to the poor. He was baptized probably around 246 and later described his baptism as a new birth.

Soon he became a priest, and late in 248 or early in 249 the people chose him as bishop, despite the opposition of five priests. In 250 the persecution under Emperor Decius broke out. Cyprian went into hiding and for more than a year guided the community by letter, for which he was criticized. Many Christians denied the faith at that time and then asked to return. Cyprian was strict with them but not inflexible: he received them after penance, and a synod at Carthage in 251 adopted his guidelines. In the dispute in Rome he supported Pope Cornelius against Novatian.

When plague struck Africa, he urged the faithful to help all the sick, including pagans and enemies. Later a sharp dispute arose with Pope Stephen I over baptism conferred by heretics. Cyprian and the synods of African bishops held such baptism to be invalid and repeated it; Stephen defended the Roman custom, which did not repeat baptism. The dispute was not settled before Stephen’s death in 257. The Church finally adopted the position of Rome, which the Council of Trent confirmed.

In 257, in the persecution under Emperor Valerian, Cyprian declared before the proconsul that he was a Christian and a bishop, refused to give the names of his priests, and was exiled to Curubis. The following year a new proconsul summoned him back. On September 14, 258, when he refused to offer sacrifice to the gods, he was sentenced to death by the sword. To the sentence he replied, “Deo gratias,” that is, “Thanks be to God.” He was executed before a great crowd of the faithful. His biographer, the deacon Pontius, recorded that he was the first bishop in Africa to die a martyr.

Cyprian has been venerated as a saint since antiquity. As early as the fourth century his memorial was kept in Rome at the tomb of Cornelius, and the Roman Canon names them both. The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes his words: “No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother.” Benedict XVI devoted a catechesis to him in 2007. John Paul II recalled that Cornelius and Cyprian, men of different backgrounds and temperaments, were united by love for the Church and by zeal for the unity of the faith.