One of the most interesting events in church history is the controversy which took place over heretical baptism (and the validity or lack thereof). I am not an expert on all of the aspects and points in this controversy, but nonetheless I decided to do a bit of research on the subject of Cyprian's conflict with Pope Stephen over this issue, and also why it seems to argue against the Vatican I conception of the papacy.
For a very brief background to this controversy: There was a dispute in the church over whether or not those who had been baptized in heretical circles needed to be rebaptized if they decided to join the Church. Cyprian (and other Eastern bishops) answered this question in the affirmative, while Pope Stephen said that heretical baptism was valid due to its being done in the name of the Trinity. At one point in this dispute, it is said that Pope Stephen referred to Cyprian as a "false prophet and deceitful work" (Epistle of Firmilian to Cyprian). Pope Stephen ended up citing Matthew 16 at one point to prove his papal authority, pressing the Eastern bishops to submit to his views. However, Cyprian and the North African church pushed back against Pope Stephen's claims to authority.
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| Pope Stephen I |
There was a council held at Carthage in the year 256 AD which was attended by 86 Eastern bishops. They agreed with Cyprian's view on heretical baptism. But they also denounced Pope Stephen's attempt to force Cyprian and the bishops to submit to him:
"For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops [Footnote: Of course this implies a rebuke to the assumption of Stephen, ("their brother," and forcibly contrasts the spirit of Cyprian with that of his intolerant compeer).], 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.But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there." (The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian, found in Ante-Nicene Fathers 5:565)
Notice the footnote in ANF which says that the statement of the council concerning "setting himself up as a bishop of bishops" is directed towards Pope Stephen. This sort of language completely conflicts with what Roman Catholicism today teaches concerning the bishop of Rome possessing universal authority over all Christians. The fact that there was such strong opposition against Pope Stephen in this controversy (even to the point of summoning a synod at Carthage in 256 AD) shows that they did not have the modern Vatican I view of the Bishop of Rome's authority whatsoever.
Things begin to get even more interesting when we look at Firmilian's letter to Cyprian, and his attitude towards to behavior of Pope Stephen. Pay careful attention to the language which is used by Firmilian towards Pope Stephen:
"And in this respect I am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of Stephen, that he who so boasts of the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession from Peter, on whom the foundations of the Church were laid, should introduce many other rocks and establish new buildings of many churches; maintaining that there is baptism in them by his authority. For they who are baptized, doubtless, fill up the number of the Church. But he who approves their baptism maintains, of those baptized, that the Church is also with them. Nor does he understand that the truth of the Christian Rock is overshadowed, and in some measure abolished, by him when he thus betrays and deserts unity. The apostle acknowledges that the Jews, although blinded by ignorance, and bound by the grossest wickedness, have yet a zeal for God. Stephen, who announces that he holds by succession the throne of Peter, is stirred with no zeal against heretics, when he concedes to them, not a moderate, but the very greatest power of grace: so far as to say and assert that, by the sacrament of baptism, the filth of the old man is washed away by them, that they pardon the former mortal sins, that they make sons of God by heavenly regeneration, and renew to eternal life by the sanctification of the divine layer. He who concedes and gives up to heretics in this way the great and heavenly gifts of the Church , what else does he do but communicate with them for whom he maintains and claims so much grace? And now he hesitates in vain to consent to them, and to be a partaker with them in other matters also, to meet together with them, and equally with them to mingle their prayers, and appoint a common altar and sacrifice." (Epistle 74 to Cyprian)
Notice that Firmilian mentions Stephen's appeal to his succession from Peter. If Firmilian believed in the supremacy of the bishop of Rome, here would have been the opportunity to possible concede that the Pope, by virtue of his apostolic authority, is right after all. And yet he does the exact opposite. He uses harsher language than Cyprian even!
I have been searching the internet a little bit to see if there might some material from a Roman Catholic apologist which perhaps might deal with this issue. So far, I haven't found anything super extensive. Yet, I did come across something interesting while reading Charles Hefele's material on this conflict between Cyprian and Pope Stephen:
"...This letter of Firmilian forms No. 75 of the collection of the letters of S. Cyprian; its contents are only, in general, an echo of what S. Cyprian had set forth in defense of his own opinion, and in opposition to Stephen; only in Firmilian is seen a much greater violence and passion against Stephen, - so much so, that Molkenbuhr [Roman Catholic] Professor at Paderborn, has thought that a letter so disrespectful towards the pope could not be genuine." (Charles Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, vol. 1, pg. 103)
Notice that this Roman Catholic professor Hefele mentions tried to dismiss Firmilian's letter as not even being authentic. This is an implicit admission deep down that what Firmilian says concerning the bishop of Rome here is completely incompatible with what Roman Catholicism teaches today. If he had some sort of solution to this, there would have been no need to dismiss the letter as not being genuine.
Here are some other quotes from scholars and church historians concerning this issue with Cyprian and Pope Stephen:
"Cyprian is convinced that the bishop answers to God alone. ‘So long as the bond of friendship is maintained and the sacred unity of the Catholic Church is preserved, each bishop is master of his own conduct, conscious that he must one day render an account of himself to the Lord’ (Epist. 55.21). In his controversy with Pope Stephen on the rebaptism of heretics he voices as the president of the African synod of September 256 his opinion as follows: “No one among us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or by tyranny and terror forces his colleagues to compulsory obedience, seeing that every bishop in the freedom of his liberty and power possesses the right to his own mind and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. We must all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Chirst, who singly and alone has power both to appoint us to the government of his Church and to judge our acts therein’ (CSEL 3, 1, 436). From these words it is evident that Cyprian does not recognize a primacy of jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome over his colleagues. Nor does he think Peter was given power over the other apostles because he states: hoc erant et ceteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio praediti et honoris et potestatis (De unit. 4). No more did Peter claim it: ‘Even Peter, whom the Lord first chose and upon whom He built His Church, when Paul later disputed with him over circumcision, did not claim insolently any prerogative for himself, nor make any arrogant assumptions nor say that he had the primacy and ought to be obeyed’ (Epist. 71, 3).”On the other hand, it is the same Cyprian who gives the highest praise to the church of Rome on account of its importance for ecclesiastical unity and faith, when he complains of heretics ‘who dare to set sail and carry letters from schismatic and blasphemous persons to the see of Peter and the leading church, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise, not realizing that the Romans, whose faith was proclaimed and praised by the apostle, are men into whose company no perversion of faith can enter’ (Epist. 59, 14). Thus the cathedra Petri is to him the ecclesia principalis and the point of origin of the unitas sacerdotalis. However, even in this letter he makes it quite clear that he does not concede to Rome any higher right to legislate for other sees because he expects her not to interfere in his own diocese ‘since to each separate shepherd has been assigned one portion of the flock to direct and govern and render hereafter an account of his ministry to the Lord’ (Epist. 59, 14)." (Johannes Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 2, pgs. 375-76)
"Stephen had condemned Cyprian as ‘false Christ, false apostle, and practicer of deceit,’ because he advocated re–baptism; and the Bishop of Carthage reciprocated in kind. Since the headship which Stephen claimed was unwarranted, by the example of St. Peter, he could not force his brethren to accept his views. Even worse, his judgment opposed the authentic tradition of the Church. The bishop of Rome, wrote Cyprian, had confounded human tradition and divine precepts; he insisted on a practice which was mere custom, and ‘custom without truth is the antiquity of error.’ Whence came the ‘tradition’ on which Stephen insisted? Cyprian answered that it came from human presumption. Subverting the Church from within, Stephen wished the Church to follow the practices of heretics by accepting their baptisms, and to hold that those who were not born in the Church could be sons of God. And finally, Cyprian urged that bishops (Stephen was meant) lay aside the love of presumption and obstinacy which had led them to prefer custom to tradition and, abandoning their evil and false arguments, return to the divine precepts, to evangelical and apostolic tradition, whence arose their order and their very origin.In a letter to Cyprian, Firmilian endorsed everything the bishop of Carthage had said and added a few strokes of his own…Recalling the earlier dispute about the date of Easter, he upheld the practice of Asia Minor by commenting that, in the celebration of Easter and in many other matters, the Romans did not observe the practices established in the age of the Apostles, though they vainly claimed apostolic authority for their aberrant forms. The decree of Stephen was the most recent instance of such audacity, an instance so grave that Firmilian ranked Stephen among heretics and blasphemers and compared his doctrines and discipline with the perfidy of Judas. The Apostles did not command as Stephen commanded, Firmilian wrote, nor did Christ establish the primacy which he claimed…To the Roman custom, Firmilian, like Cyprian, opposed the custom of truth, ‘holding from the beginning that which was delivered by Christ and the Apostles.’ And, Firmilian argued, by his violence and obstinacy, Stephen had apostacized from the communion of ecclesiastical unity; far from cutting heretics off from his communion, he had cut himself off from the orthodox and made himself ‘a stranger in all respects from his brethren, rebelling against the sacrament and the faith with the madness of contumacious discord. With such a man can there be one Spirit and one Body, in whom perhaps there is not even one mind, slippery, shifting, and uncertain as it is?’" (Karl Morrison, Tradition and Authority in the Western Church, pgs. 31-32)
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