The African Councils

Between 251 and 256 Cyprian convened at least six major councils of the bishops of proconsular Africa and Numidia at Carthage, addressing in succession the crisis of the lapsi, the question of plague and almsgiving, the cases of unworthy bishops in Spain, and — above all — the rebaptism of heretics, culminating in the Seventh Council of 1 September 256, at which eighty-seven bishops each delivered a personal sentence and the whole was recorded as the Sententiae Episcoporum. These councils are the most developed expression of regional conciliarity before Nicaea: the metropolitan presides, but no bishop rules another, and the decisions emerge from collegial deliberation rather than hierarchical decree. They prefigure — and directly inform — the canonical tradition of regional synods that the later ecumenical councils would confirm.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father / Latin)

Conciliarity as Episcopal Practice

The council was not an innovation that Cyprian invented; it was the established mechanism of the African church. What Cyprian did was convene it with new regularity, widen its membership to include Numidian bishops alongside those of proconsular Africa, and use it consistently as the forum for resolving the major pastoral and theological questions of his episcopate. The principle behind the African council was simple and fundamental: no single bishop, however senior, could settle questions that affected the whole regional church, because the episcopate is held in common — episcopatus unus est, cuius a singulis in solidum pars tenetur, “the episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each [bishop] for the whole” (Cyprian, De Unitate 5 [CSEL 3.1:214; PL 4:501]; trans. ANF 5). If that is so, decisions of common moment require common deliberation (Burns, Cyprian the Bishop, ch. 6; Sage, Cyprian, ch. 7).

The procedures that emerge from Cyprian’s letters and from the conciliar records preserved in the corpus are consistent. The bishops of the relevant provinces are summoned. They assemble in Carthage, the metropolitan see. Cyprian, as bishop of Carthage, presides — he opens the session, sets the agenda, and drafts the letter in which the council’s decision is communicated to other churches. But he does not rule: the council deliberates, the bishops speak in order, and the resulting decision is styled as the decision of the council, not of the metropolitan. Correspondence sent in the council’s name is characteristically subscribed by multiple bishops — sometimes the whole assembly — and the record of each bishop’s vote is in some cases preserved verbatim (Cyprian, Sententiae Episcoporum [CSEL 3.1:435–436]; Clarke, ACW 47, introduction to Ep. 70–75).

The Council of 251: The Lapsed

The first major council of the episcopate was convened in 251, after Cyprian’s return from hiding and the end of the Decian persecution, to settle the question of the lapsi — those who had lapsed by sacrificing, by offering incense, or by purchasing the libellus that certified compliance (the libellatici). The question was urgent because the confessors in prison had been issuing their own letters of peace (libelli pacis) restoring the lapsed to communion without episcopal reference, and some presbyters — Felicissimus chief among them — had been implementing these letters in defiance of their bishop (see De Lapsis and the Libelli).

The council of 251 established the graduated discipline of penance that would govern African practice for the remainder of the century: the libellatici were to be admitted to communion after a period of penance; the sacrificati — those who had actually sacrificed — were to do longer penance and receive communion only at the point of death, unless the continued severity of persecution made an earlier reconciliation pastorally necessary (Cyprian, Ep. 55.6, 17 [CSEL 3.2:628, 638]; Clarke, ACW 44; see The Discipline of Penance). The important point for the council’s ecclesiology is the nature of the decision: it was not Cyprian’s ruling, subsequently ratified. It was a collegial judgment, emerging from a council of which Cyprian was the convener and president but not the sole determinant. Cyprian would refer to this council’s authority repeatedly in subsequent letters when the lapsed issue resurfaced (Cyprian, Ep. 59.15, 64.1 [CSEL 3.2:683, 717]; Clarke, ACW 44–46).

The Councils of 252–254

Further councils are attested for 252, 253, and 254. The letters provide evidence for continued synodal activity on the question of the lapsed as persecution renewed under Gallus and as the great plague of the 250s — the so-called “Plague of Cyprian” — created new pastoral questions about penance, reconciliation at the point of death, and the Christian response to epidemic mortality (Cyprian, De Mortalitate [CSEL 3.1:295–314]; trans. ANF 5; Sage, Cyprian, ch. 8).

The council of 254 addressed two distinct cases that illuminate the African ecclesiology of episcopal accountability. The case of Basilides and Martial, bishops of the Spanish churches of León-Astorga and Mérida, who had obtained libelli during the persecution (thus becoming libellatici) and had been replaced by their communities, was brought to Cyprian’s council when Basilides sought reinstatement by appealing to Rome — and when Pope Stephen, apparently accepting Basilides’ own account, wrote in support of his restoration. Epistula 67, addressed by the African council to the Spanish churches, repudiates this outcome: the people of those churches had the right to reject an unworthy bishop, the council had examined the evidence and found against Basilides, and the fact that Stephen had been misled into supporting Basilides did not bind the Spanish churches to restore him (Cyprian, Ep. 67.3–5 [CSEL 3.2:737–739]; Clarke, ACW 46). The letter is a landmark in the African theology of episcopal accountability: the bishop serves the people, and a bishop who has disqualified himself by apostasy — even technical apostasy through the libellus — may be removed by the people’s judgment, confirmed in a council.

The same epistle carries the positive principle: “The people, obedient to the Lord’s precepts and fearing God, ought to separate themselves from a sinful bishop, and not to associate themselves with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest, since they have the power either of choosing worthy priests or of rejecting unworthy ones” (Cyprian, Ep. 67.3 [CSEL 3.2:737]; Clarke, ACW 46). This is not democracy in a modern sense; it is the ancient right of the community — laity and clergy — to recognize and confirm (or reject) the bishop whom God has given them, a principle rooted in the same ecclesiology that demanded the bishop act sine consilio vestro et sine consensu plebis — “without the counsel of the clergy and the consent of the people” (Ep. 14.4; see The Correspondence).

The Three Rebaptism Councils: 255 and 256

The climax of the conciliar period was the debate over heretical baptism. The question — whether those baptized outside the Church by heretics needed to be baptized upon reception into the Church, or whether their heretical baptism was valid and only confirmation was needed — had already been settled in Africa by earlier tradition; Tertullian’s position, which Cyprian inherited, was that there is no baptism outside the Church (De Baptismo 15; Tertullian, CCSL 1:291–292). The question became acute when Pope Stephen of Rome insisted on the Roman practice of simple imposition of hands — accepting the heretical baptism as valid — and wrote to the African and Asian churches demanding conformity (Cyprian, Ep. 74.1 [CSEL 3.2:799]; Clarke, ACW 47).

Cyprian convened three councils specifically on this question: probably one in 255, one in early 256, and the great Seventh Council of 1 September 256. The first two councils settled the African position in favor of rebaptism; the Seventh Council addressed it in its most solemn form, with a full record of the bishops’ individual votes preserved (Clarke, ACW 47, introduction; Burns, Cyprian the Bishop, ch. 7; see The Clash with Stephen).

The Seventh Council of Carthage (1 September 256) and the Sententiae Episcoporum

The council of 1 September 256 — the Seventh Council in the series — is the best-documented event of the African synodal tradition before the fourth century. Eighty-seven bishops were present and each delivered a personal sentence (sententia) on the question of heretical baptism; all eighty-seven sententiae are preserved verbatim in the record (Cyprian, Sententiae Episcoporum LXXXVII de Haereticis Baptizandis [CSEL 3.1:435–461]; trans. ANF 5). The council opens with a statement by Cyprian — presiding as bishop of Carthage — that is also the council’s operating principle:

“It remains that each of us should bring forward what he thinks, judging no man, nor rejecting any one from the right of communion, if he should think differently from us. For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.” (Sententiae Episcoporum, prooemium [CSEL 3.1:436]; trans. ANF 5)

The phrase nec sibi quisquam episcoporum episcopum constituat — “no one of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops” — is the clearest statement in all of Cyprian’s writings of the non-monarchical character of the African collegial episcopate. The metropolitan convenes and presides; he does not command. The decision is collegial, the vote is personal, and — crucially — even a bishop who dissented was not excluded from communion on that account. The council asserts a regional consensus; it does not impose it by authority over other churches or over the bishop of Rome (Burns, Cyprian the Bishop, ch. 7; Brent, Cyprian and Roman Carthage, ch. 9).

All eighty-seven sententiae were delivered in support of the African position that heretical baptism is no baptism. The bishops range from the most senior see to the most obscure Numidian town, and their sententiae vary considerably in length and theological sophistication; but the unanimity — eighty-seven for, none against — demonstrates that by September 256 the African church had reached a settled conciliar position, regardless of what Rome wished. Cyprian died by the sword less than two years later, on 14 September 258, with the dispute unresolved (see The Valerianic Persecution).

The Conciliar Model and Its Afterlife

Cyprian’s African councils matter beyond the immediate disputes they addressed because they constitute, in practice, the most fully articulated regional synod model the Church had yet seen. Several features of the model passed, in modified form, into the later canonical tradition:

Metropolitan presidency without metropolitan supremacy. Cyprian presides at every council but claims no power to overrule his fellow bishops. The metropolitan’s role is to convene, to set the agenda, and to draft the common letter; the decisions belong to the council. This is the pattern that the canons of Nicaea (325) and later councils would formalize for the provincial synod (Nicaea 325, Canons 4–5; cf. Apostolic Canon 34; Brent, Cyprian and Roman Carthage, ch. 10).

Collegial non-interference. No bishop at Carthage orders another bishop, in his own diocese, what to do; the council records its decision and communicates it, but implementation belongs to each bishop within his own church. The principle that a council’s authority is persuasive and collegial, not coercive and hierarchical, is distinctively African and would be contested — precisely because it limited what Rome could demand of Africa — but it shaped the Eastern canonical tradition’s understanding of the relationship between local church and universal council (see Orthodoxy: The Ecumenical Councils).

The right of the people. Epistula 67’s affirmation that the community has the right to reject an unworthy bishop — and that a Roman letter supporting such a bishop does not override the community’s judgment — carries implications well beyond the case of Basilides and Martial. It articulates a participatory ecclesiology in which the plebs, the laity, are not passive recipients of episcopal decisions but active parties to the church’s governance. This too has a canonical afterlife, in the ancient requirement that episcopal elections involve the consent of clergy and people (cf. Leo the Great, Ep. 10.4, on the canons governing elections; Clarke, ACW 46, on Ep. 67).

The African councils and the rebaptism dispute left an ambiguous legacy. The Church did not ultimately adopt the African position on heretical baptism — the Roman practice prevailed, was confirmed by Augustine’s sacramental theology against the Donatists, and became the standard of both East and West. But the African conciliar model — regular regional synods, collegial decision-making, the metropolitan who presides without ruling — was preserved in the canonical tradition as the proper form of provincial governance, and Cyprian’s Sententiae Episcoporum survived as a monument to the seriousness with which the African church took collegial deliberation (see Orthodoxy: Canon Law).

References

Cyprian of Carthage. Sententiae Episcoporum LXXXVII de Haereticis Baptizandis (Seventh Council of Carthage, 1 September 256). CSEL 3.1:435–461. Trans. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, Buffalo 1886. Online: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050711.htm
Cyprian of Carthage. Epistulae, esp. Ep. 14.4 (the nihil sine consilio principle), Ep. 55 (the lapsed, 251), Ep. 67 (Basilides and Martial; the people’s right), Ep. 70–75 (the rebaptism dispute and the councils). CSEL 3.2–3.3. Trans. G. W. Clarke, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, ACW 43–47. New York: Newman Press, 1984–1989.
Cyprian of Carthage. De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate 5 (episcopatus unus est). CSEL 3.1:214. PL 4:501. Trans. ANF 5. Online: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050701.htm
Cyprian of Carthage. De Mortalitate. CSEL 3.1:295–314. Trans. ANF 5. On the plague context of the 252–253 period.
Clarke, G. W. The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage. ACW 43, 44, 46, 47. New York: Newman Press, 1984–1989. Introductions and commentary on each letter group; the standard reference for the councils’ context.
Burns, J. Patout. Cyprian the Bishop. London: Routledge, 2002. Chapters 6–7 on the conciliar mechanism and the rebaptism councils.
Brent, Allen. Cyprian and Roman Carthage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Chapters 9–10 on the councils and their relationship to Roman claims.
Sage, Michael M. Cyprian. Patristic Monograph Series 1. Cambridge, MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975. Chapters 7–9 for a narrative reconstruction of the council sequence.
Tertullian. De Baptismo 15. CCSL 1:291–292. Trans. ANF 3. The earlier African tradition on baptism outside the Church that Cyprian inherited.
Nicaea, First Ecumenical Council (325). Canons 4–5 (on metropolitan presidency and provincial synods). In The Rudder (Pedalion), trans. D. Cummings. Chicago: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957. For the canonical formalization of the metropolitan-synod model.