Cyprian came from a wealthy family in Carthage in the 3rd century. He enjoyed a “rambunctious” young adulthood as a lawyer. But when he was 35 in around 245 AD, he felt called to Christianity and he was baptized. He said he felt: “a light from above, serene and pure…infused into my reconciled heart.” He gave the poor a portion of his wealth and they did not forget it. In no time flat, he was ordained a deacon and then a priest. In late 248 or early 249, he was elected bishop of Carthage – just three or four years after he was baptized!
The Roman Empire was a mess just then. Between 235 and 284, at least 26 different people were recognized as emperors. Jostling, in-fighting, assassinations – there wasn’t too much stability or peace of mind for anybody. Add to that a financial crisis (inflation) that created a greater strain on the poor. Then two things happened in 250: a plague hit and Emperor Decius began an empire-wide persecution of Christians. Sacrifice to the gods of Rome or else.
Cyprian had been a Christian for 5 years. Now he’s leading a church in fear for its life. Cyprian went into hiding. He claimed that he could be a better shepherd to his church if he was alive at a distance than if he was martyred at home. Now, am I totally off base or does that kinda sound like the apostles and disciples when Jesus died? After all, Jesus’ ministry lasted three years before he was crucified. Maybe his followers were defending themselves in their own minds when they fled, too, coming up with reasons that running was what God really wanted from them.
In the early church, they sometimes connected Jesus’s death and resurrection with Song of Solomon “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” “Love is strong as death.” Following Jesus meant “finding life in his name,” as the Gospel of John puts it. It meant a door was open to paradise with Jesus that far surpassed any joy or pain that Rome could offer.
When Christians shared the Eucharist, what we call the Lord’s Supper, they saw themselves sharing a meal with their departed loved ones, held together in the life of Christ. In those early days, when people were still being crucified, they didn’t find comfort in images of the cross. They focused on Jesus as the one who was born among us; they focused on Christ who rose again to new life. In the mid-third century – the same period when Cyprian was bishop –Hippolytus of Rome taught that when we take Christ’s body and blood, we are joining ourselves to his body at a time before it was broken and not after. Jesus is a living sacrifice. At the table, we join ourselves to God the Trinity: the one who is the source of all life from the first moment of creation. We join ourselves to Jesus’s incarnation, divine and human together – accessible to us even now in this life. We join ourselves to the power of life that leads us home to union with him in paradise with all the saints. For the first few hundred years, they were determined to connect to life in him because they found so little hope in life under the violent powers of Rome.
Cyprian had fled Carthage for his safety in 250 AD, but he came back around mid-251. What it meant to live as a Christian became an urgent, pressing question. Some Christians had lost their lives in the persecution and some had sacrificed to Roman gods to save their skins. Now, some were busy preparing their souls for martyrdom. They wanted to share Christ’s death. Meanwhile, people all around them were suffering from a plague. These Christians stayed away. They didn’t want to die from the plague because that would keep them from their glorious death, standing in powerful, public defiance of Rome. Cyprian wrote to them in 252. He said that Christians are showing the world evidence of how committed they really are to justice and service. It says a lot about us if healthy people don’t take care of the ill; if family doesn’t love family; if slaveowners are cruel even to slaves who are sick; if Christians keep being violent or greedy or proud or shameless or withholding wealth with so many in need. Cyprian saw that the outcome of this zeal for martyrdom seemed to be more self-interest than selflessness.
Cyprian tells them that martyrdom isn’t a choice; it’s a calling and it’s not a calling for everybody. We should be dedicated and humble as we live our lives in the Lord. Cyprian said: “God does not ask for our blood, but our faith.” The violence, the pain, the suffering – it wasn’t the point of Christ’s dying and rising. We are here to share life where we can, however we can. One life of service and love isn’t better than another. Whatever course our life takes, in the end we go on to the same life together. That is the path we see unfolded in the Resurrection.
Source:
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprian
*Williams, Nadya. Cultural Christians in the Early Church: A Historical and Practical Introduction to Christians in the Greco-Roman World, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2023, p. 105-107, 122-123.
*Nakashima Brock, Rita & Rebecca Ann Parker. Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire. Boston: Beacon Press, 2008, p. 54-55, 145, 158, 160-161.
*https://www.delphiclassics.com/Sample%20PDFs/Complete%20Works%20of%20Cyprian%20of%20Carthage%20-%20sample.pdf
*https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04583b.htm
*https://wolfmueller.co/cyprian-on-mortality/
