01 — Foundations

The wealthy Carthaginian rhetor, his conversion under the presbyter Caecilianus, the debt to Tertullian “the master,” and the rapid election to the bishopric over the opposition of five presbyters.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father / Latin)

Part of the St. Cyprian of Carthage Reference Guide. This section contains two content files:

File	Summary
bishop-of-carthage.md	Bishop of Carthage — Within approximately two years of his baptism at Easter 246, Cyprian was elected bishop of Carthage by popular acclamation — an ascent of remarkable speed, canonically anomalous, and immediately contested by five senior presbyters who would never be reconciled to him. How he came to the chair, how he held it, and what governing principles he brought to the greatest see of Latin Africa are the subjects of this file.
carthage-and-the-convert-rhetor.md	Carthage and the Convert-Rhetor — Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus was born a wealthy pagan, educated as a master of rhetoric in one of the great cities of the Latin world, and converted to Christianity in middle age — an upheaval he records with striking directness in his earliest surviving work, Ad Donatum. His intellectual formation under Tertullian, mediated through that father’s writings, gave the African church its most formidable bishop and Latin Christianity two of its most enduring theological watchwords. This file examines the city and culture that formed him, the conversion that remade him, and the debt to Tertullian that never left him.

File

Summary

bishop-of-carthage.md

Bishop of Carthage — Within approximately two years of his baptism at Easter 246, Cyprian was elected bishop of Carthage by popular acclamation — an ascent of remarkable speed, canonically anomalous, and immediately contested by five senior presbyters who would never be reconciled to him. How he came to the chair, how he held it, and what governing principles he brought to the greatest see of Latin Africa are the subjects of this file.

carthage-and-the-convert-rhetor.md

Carthage and the Convert-Rhetor — Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus was born a wealthy pagan, educated as a master of rhetoric in one of the great cities of the Latin world, and converted to Christianity in middle age — an upheaval he records with striking directness in his earliest surviving work, Ad Donatum. His intellectual formation under Tertullian, mediated through that father’s writings, gave the African church its most formidable bishop and Latin Christianity two of its most enduring theological watchwords. This file examines the city and culture that formed him, the conversion that remade him, and the debt to Tertullian that never left him.

01 — Foundations

See Also