Cyprian (c.200 - c.258)
We do not know exactly when or even where Cyprian was born. It is usually assumed that his birth took place around the year 200, since he was evidently a man of some maturity when he was elected Bishop of Carthage in 248. That North African city may well have been his birthplace where his parents seem to have been wealthy and cultured heathens. Cyprian was probably brought up on the family estate and given a first class education.
According to Jerome, Cyprian was a teacher of rhetoric before his conversion to Christianity and earned a formidable reputation for his debating skill. He may have gained some experience as a lawyer or a politician. Professor Henry Chadwick thinks that perhaps he was a local senator. There is also a suggestion that he was somehow involved in the occult. Augustine says that Cyprian preached the doctrines of demons and Prudentius said that he was steeped in the black arts.Cyprian’s Conversion
It was through searching the Scriptures that Cyprian was converted. He had been urged to do so by a Christian friend named Caecilius. The story of Jonah particularly convicted him, since he too had been trying to evade God. It led to what his earliest biographer, Pontius the deacon, does not hesitate to describe as a second birth. In his letter to Donatus, Cyprian bears his own testimony to the transforming experience. ‘While I was still lying in darkness and gloomy night, wandering hither and thither, tossed about on the foam of this boastful age, and uncertain of my wandering steps, knowing nothing of my real life, and remote from truth and light, I used to regard it as a difficult matter, and especially as difficult in respect of my character at that time, that a man should be capable of being born again.’ Like Nicodemus, he asked, ‘How can these things be?’ (John 3:9).
‘As I myself was held in bonds by the innumerable errors of my previous life, from which I did not believe that I could possibly be delivered,’ Cyprian continues, ‘so I was disposed to acquiesce in my clinging vices; and because I despaired of better things, I used to indulge my sins as if they were actually part of me.’ But after ‘the stain of former years had been washed away, and a light from above, serene and pure, had been poured into my reconciled heart — after that, by the agency of the Spirit breathed from heaven, a second birth had restored me to be a new man — then, in a wonderful manner, doubtful things at once began to assure themselves to me, hidden things to be revealed, dark things to be enlightened, what before had seemed difficult began to suggest a means of accomplishment, what had been thought impossible to be capable of achievement; so that I was enabled to acknowledge that what previously, being born of the flesh, had been living in the practice of sins, was of the earth earthly, but had now begun to be of God, and was animated by the Spirit of holiness.’ That moving account deserves to stand beside the better known conversion testimony of Augustine in his Confessions.
As Peter Hinchcliff observes, it is the language ‘of a man who takes seriously a commitment to a personal revolution.’ Cyprian did what our Lord asked of the rich young ruler and sold his goods to give to the poor. He adopted a simple life style and devoted himself to the preaching of the gospel and the ministry of the Church. Within two years Cyprian was elected bishop and became the leading theologian of the Western Church prior to Augustine. In the year 258 he was beheaded as a martyr during the persecution under the Roman Emperor Valerian.
Interest in Prophecy
Although Cyprian’s most celebrated treatise deals with the unity of the Church, throughout his writings he displays a distinct interest in prophecy and the events related to the Lord’s return. One of his earlier publications was produced in response to a request from his friend Quirinius for a summary of biblical teaching about the Jews. In Book One, under twenty-four headings, Cyprian exposes Jewish errors, and in Book Two he deals with the unique person and redemptive mission of Christ. In Book Three, added later, the moral duties of Christians are outlined.
Cyprian explains that the Jews have incurred the divine displeasure because they did not believe the prophets but actually put some of them to death. ‘I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they did not obey Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck’ (Jer. 7:25, 26; cf. 25:4-7). Elijah complained that the people of Israel had forsaken the Lord, demolished His altars and slaughtered His prophets with the sword (1 Kings 19:10). And in Nehemiah 9:26 we are reminded that the Jews were disobedient, casting God’s law behind their backs: they killed the prophets who testified against them and urged them to return to the Lord.
Cyprian quotes further biblical texts to show that it was foretold in advance that the Jews would neither know the Lord nor recognise and receive the Messiah (Is. 1:2-6; 6:9,10; Jer. 8:7-9; John 1:10,11). It was also prophesied that they would not understand the prophetic Scriptures, but that these would be intelligible to them in the last time after Christ had come again (Is. 29:11-18; Jer. 23:20; Dan 12:4-7; 2 Cor. 3:14-1 6).
The Two Advents
In his treatise On the Vanity of Idols, Cyprian refers to the failure of the Jews to distinguish between the two advents of Christ. They knew that the Messiah was to come, since the prophets consistently announced both His first advent in humiliation and His second advent in glory. In the first He discharged ‘the office and example of a man’: the second would declare Him openly to be the Son of God. They did not understand the first advent which preceded, as being hidden in His passion, but believe only in the one in which He will be manifested in power.
The result was that when the Lord Jesus Christ ‘in accordance with what had been previously foretold by the prophets,’ exorcised demons, healed lepers, restored sight to the blind and mobility to the lame, and even raised the dead, ‘the Jews, who had believed Him "man only" from the humility of His flesh and body, regarded Him as a sorcerer for the authority of His power. The Jewish leaders eventually arrested Him and handed Him over to Pontius Pilate, demanding that the death sentence should be exacted. ‘That they would do this He Himself also had foretold; and the testimony of all the prophets had in like manner preceded Him, that it beloved Him to suffer, not that He might feel death, but that He might conquer death, and that, when He should have suffered, He should return again into heaven, to show the power of the divine majesty. Therefore the course of events fulfilled the promise.’
The End of the Age Cyprian believed that the day of judgement was near even in his time. The marks of apostasy outlined in 2 Timothy 3:1-9 were increasingly evident. ‘Whatever things were predicted are fulfilled; and as the end of the world is approaching, they have come forth for the probation as well as man as of the times. Error deceives as the adversary rages more and more; senselessness lifts up, envy inflames, covetousness makes blind, impiety depraves, pride puffs up, discord exasperates, anger hurries headlong.’ We find it hard to believe that Cyprian is referring to the middle of the third century and not to the close of the twentieth.
‘Moreover, that wars continue frequently to prevail, that death and famine accumulate anxiety, that health is shattered by raging diseases, that the human race is wasted by the desolation of pestilence, know that this was foretold; that evils should be multiplied in the last times, and that misfortunes should be varied: and that as the day of judgement is now drawing nigh, the censure of an indignant God should be more and more amused for the scourging of the human race.’ All this happens, so Cyprian tells Demetrianus, the proconsul of North Africa, ‘not, as your false complaining and ignorant inexperience of the truth asserts and repeats, because ‘our gods are not worshipped by us, but because God is not worshipped by you.’ Christians, however, should not be disturbed by these portents of the end, but rather be encouraged by the fulfilment of the prophecies. ‘Yet let not the excessive and headlong faithlessness of many move or disturb us, but rather strengthen our faith in the truthfulness which has foretold the matter. As some have become such, because these things were predicted beforehand, so let other brethren beware of matters of a like kind, because these also were predicted beforehand, even as the Lord instructs us, and says, "But take heed; see, I have told you all things beforehand" (Mark 13:23).’
The Antichrist
In a number of passages Cyprian associates the approaching end of the age with the appearance of the Antichrist, in his letter to the Christians in Thibaris, exhorting them to be ready for persecution and martyrdom, he warns his readers that ‘the day of affliction has begun to hang over our heads, and the end of the world and the time of Antichrist to draw near, so that we must all stand prepared for the battle; not consider anything but the glory of life eternal, and the crown of the confession of the Lord.’ He reminds the ministers of the gospel living in Spain that ‘these things have been foretold as about to happen in the end of the world; and it was predicted by the voice of the Lord, and by the testimony of the apostles, that now that the world is failing, and the Antichrist is drawing near, everything good shall fail, but evil and adverse things shall appear.’ Cyprian writes similarly to Fortunatus, advising him that ‘the hateful time of Antichrist is already beginning to draw near.
In assuming that the end was imminent, even in his own lifetime, Cyprian accepted the common computation of the world’s duration as covering only six thousand years. He therefore expected the emergence of the Antichrist before the seventh millennium. Even though he was misled by this estimate of the world’s lifespan, his admonition concerning the eventual arrival of the Antichrist still carries weight today.
The Kingdom of Christ
The threatening prophecies about the Antichrist should not, however, frighten true believers. ‘Antichrist is coming, but above him comes Christ also. The enemy goes about and rages, but immediately the Lord follows to avenge our sufferings and our wounds.’ The Second Coming of Christ will bring about the defeat of the Antichrist in the last times. It is then that He will establish the Kingdom of His saints, as Cyprian explains in his comments on the Lord’s prayer. Christ Himself is the Kingdom ‘whom we day by day desire to come, whose advent we crave to be quickly manifested to us. For since he is Himself the resurrection, since in Him we rise again, so also the Kingdom of God may be said to be Himself, since in Him we shall reign.
The Kingdom, so Cyprian affirms in his treatise On Mortality, ‘is beginning to be at hand; the reward of life and the rejoicing of eternal salvation, and the perpetual gladness and possession lately lost of paradise, are now coming, with the passing away of the world.’ As Dr L. E. Froom points out, Cyprian looked for the everlasting Kingdom to succeed the Second Advent, but he had no clear-cut concept, so it seems, of the relationship of the resurrection and the Millennium to this expectation.
He may find His servants watching (Luke 12: v.37).
Cyprian is at pains to underline the ethical implications of belief in the Lord’s Return. He concludes his treatise On the Unity of the Church with a moving exhortation to perpetual vigilance so that when Christ comes again, He may find His servants watching (Luke 12:37). ‘Let us always with solicitude and caution wait for the sudden coming of the Lord.’ And in his letter to Caecilian he emphasises the need to be thankful that whilst Christ ‘instructs for the future what we ought to do, He pardons for the past wherein we in our simplicity have erred. And because already His Second Coming draws near to us, His benign and liberal condescension is more and more illuminating our hearts with the light of truth.’
YT 09/91
