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The Plague of Cyprian, named after the man who by AD 248 found himself Bishop of Carthage, struck in a period of history when basic facts are sometimes known barely or not at all. Yet the one fact that virtually all of our sources do agree upon is that a great pestilence defined the age between AD 249 and AD 262. Inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, and textual sources collectively insist on the high stakes of the pandemic. In a recent study, I was able to count at least seven eyewitnesses, and a further six independent lines of transmission, whose testimony...

During plague periods in the Roman Empire, Christians made a name for themselves. Historians have suggested that the terrible Antonine Plague of the 2nd century, which might have killed off a quarter of the Roman Empire, led to the spread of Christianity, as Christians cared for the sick and offered an spiritual model whereby plagues were not the work of angry and capricious deities but the product of a broken Creation in revolt against a loving God. But the more famous epidemic is the Plague of Cyprian, named for a bishop who gave a colorful account of this disease in...

Red Simple “WHOSOEVER YE BE that are seduced by the mysteries of the demons, none of you can equal the zeal I once had for these false gods, nor my researches into their secrets, nor the vain power they had communicated to me, to me Cyprian, who from my infancy was given up to the service of the dragon in the citadel of Minerva. Learn from me the deceitfulness of their illusions. A virgin has proved to me that their power is but smoke. The king of the demons was arrested at the door of a mere child, and...

Red Semidouble THERE IS A PECULIAR BEAUTY in the meeting of these two Saints upon the sacred Cycle. Cyprian, in a famous dispute, was once opposed to the Apostolic See: Eternal Wisdom now offers to the homage of the world, in company with one of the most illustrious successors of St. Peter. Cornelius was, by birth, of the highest nobility; witness his tomb, lately discovered in the family crypt, surrounded by the most honorable names in the patrician ranks. The elevation of a descendant of the Scipios to the sovereign Pontificate linked the past grandeurs of Rome to her...

Red Simple CYPRIAN’S Confessio begins: “Whosoever ye be that are seduced by the mysteries of the demons, none of you can equal the zeal I once had for these false gods, nor my researches into their secrets, nor the vain power they had communicated to me, to me Cyprian, who from my infancy was given up to the service of the dragon in the citadel of Minerva. Learn from me the deceitfulness of their illusions. A virgin has proved to me that their power is but smoke. The king of the demons was arrested at the door of a...

Red Semidouble THERE is a peculiar beauty in the meeting of these two Saints upon the sacred Cycle. Cyprian, in a famous dispute, was once opposed to the Apostolic See: Eternal Wisdom now offers to the homage of the world, in company with one of the most illustrious successors of St. Peter. Cornelius was, by birth, of the highest nobility; witness his tomb, lately discovered in the family crypt, surrounded by the most honorable names in the patrician ranks. The elevation of a descendant of the Scipios to the sovereign Pontificate linked the past grandeurs of Rome to her...

Love of the World Fuels the Fear of Death – A Meditation on a Teaching of St. Cyprian Msgr. Charles Pope • November 26, 2015 • As November winds down and Advent approaches, the traditional meditation we make on the four last things (death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell) is still operative. A classic writing by St. Cyprian comes to mind. It is a meditation on the fundamental human struggle to be free of undue attachment to this world and to have God (and the things awaiting us in Heaven) as our highest priority.In writing this meditation, St. Cyprian had in...

The Hieromartyr Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, was born in about the year 200 in the city of Carthage (Northern Africa), where all his life and work took place. Thascius Cyprianus was the son of a rich pagan senator, and received a fine secular education becoming a splendid orator, and a teacher of rhetoric and philosophy in the school of Carthage. He often appeared in the courts to defend his fellow citizens. Cyprian afterwards recalled that for a long time “he remained in a deep dark mist.., far from the light of Truth.” His fortune, received from his parents and from...

The rich heritage of Tunisia, maybe the only place where the Arab Spring stands a chance Modern-day Tunisians, more Westernized than most Arabs, see themselves as descendants of the great Carthaginian general who invaded Italy. The Arab Spring began in Sidi Bouzid, a small Tunisian town, at the end of 2010. In a desperate protest against the corrupt and oppressive government that had made it impossible for him to earn a living, food-cart vendor Mohamed Bouazizi stood before City Hall, doused himself with gasoline, and lit a match. His suicide seeded a revolutionary storm that swept the countryside and eventually...

June 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This article presents the Christian attitude toward abortion before the first ecumenical council, that is, until A.D. 325. Because the New Testament does not comment on the morality of abortion, this article considers the writings of the first generations of Christians after the apostles, for they indicate that opposition to abortion (1) was shared at a time when the writers — or Christians not many generations earlier — personally knew the apostles or their first disciples and thus benefited from their unwritten teachings and interpretations of Scripture, (2) comes from a date so early that...

LANCELOT ANDREWS Dr. Lancelot Andrews, a member of the Westmenster Company is known for his linguistic ability.