Cyprian was a Carthaginian bishop who deserted his flock no sooner Decius initiated his clampdown on the Christian communities; although the Decian decree was not long enforced, he never regained office. His alleged letters obscurely reported that when a disturbance arose the Lord bade him withdraw. An exile or else a concealed fugitive, his patrimony and his episcopal power stood nonetheless undiminished throughout the epistolary narrative. Both absent and present, he imperturbably ruled the African Church, presided over large councils and played an outstanding role in Roman, Gallic or Iberian conflicts. Sometimes he solemnly declared that bishops were only accountable to God, but on other occasions he urged other prelates, or even the laity, to remove them. A Novatus whom he often mistook for Novatian ruthlessly resisted him. Entirely unaware of the existence of any previous African martyrs –not even in Tertullian’s time– when Valerian selectively persecuted upright churchmen while sparing his schismatic opponents, he proclaimed that such dire events had long been foretold.

An entirely different perspective is submitted in Did Tertullian really exist? Did Cyprian? Did Hippolytus? , which contends that the aforesaid apologists were no more than literary champions brought down from the preceding century to uphold either of the religious factions that struggled for the control of the churches after Diocletian’s resignation. Whereas 4^th-century African and Roman rigorists denounced an entrenched clergy intent on preserving its former pre-eminence despite the reprehensible conduct of many of its members, the hierarchical organization under attack disparaged them as raging and unmerciful apostates. Caecilian and Donatus fought each other through the writings of Cyprian and Tertullian.

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