And this unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the Church, that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a falsehood: let no one corrupt the truth of the faith by perfidious prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole (The Unity of the Church, 5).

Men plunge into heresies and schisms when priests are disparaged, when bishops are envied, when a man complains that he himself was not rather ordained, or disdains to suffer that another should be put over him (On Jealousy and Envy, 6).

For what can I wish greater or better in my prayers than to see the flock of Christ enlightened by the honour of your confession? For although all the brethren ought to rejoice in this, yet, in the common gladness, the share of the bishop is the greatest. For the glory of the Church is the glory of the bishop (Epistle 6.1).

I have long been patient, beloved brethren, hoping that my forbearing silence would avail to quietness. But since the unreasonable and reckless presumption of some is seeking by its boldness to disturb both the honour of the martyrs, and the modesty of the confessors, and the tranquility of the whole people, it behoves me no longer to keep silence, lest too much reticence should issue in danger both to the people and to ourselves. For what danger ought we not to fear from the Lord's displeasure, when some of the presbyters, remembering neither the Gospel nor their own place, and, moreover, considering neither the Lord's future judgment nor the bishop now placed over them, claim to themselves entire authority, - a thing which was never in any wise done under our predecessors,- with discredit and contempt of the bishop? (Epistle 9.1).

For to concede those things which tend to destruction is to deceive. Nor is the lapsed raised in this manner, but, by offending God, he is more urged on to ruin. Let them (rash presbyters) learn, therefore, even from you, what they ought to have taught; let them reserve your petitions and wishes for the bishops (Epistle 10.2).

The Church is founded upon the bishops, and every act of the Church is controlled by these same rulers. Since this, then, is founded on the divine law, I marvel that some, with daring temerity, have chosen to write to me as if they wrote in the name of the Church; when the Church is established in the bishop and the clergy, and all who stand fast in the faith ... But if certain lapsed ones claim to be the Church, and if the Church be among them and in them, what is left but for us to ask of these very persons that they would deign to admit us into the Church? Therefore it behoves them to be submissive and quiet and modest, as those who ought to appease God, in remembrance of their sin, and not to write letters in the name of the Church, when they should rather be aware that they are writing to the Church (Epistle 26.1).

Nor shall we cease to command them to lay aside their pernicious dissensions and disputes, and to be aware that it is an impiety to forsake their Mother; and to acknowledge and understand that when a bishop is once made and approved by the testimony and judgment of his colleagues and the people, another can by no means be appointed (Epistle 40.2).

The case of every one should be heard there where the crime has been committed; and a portion of the flock has been assigned to each individual pastor, which he is to rule and govern, having to give account of his doing to the Lord; it certainly behoves those over whom we are placed not to run about nor to break up the harmonious agreement of the bishops with their crafty and deceitful rashness, but there to plead their cause (Epistle 54.14).

We neither do violence to, nor impose a law upon, any one, since each prelate has in the administration of the Church the exercise of his will free, as he shall give an account of his conduct to the Lord (Epistle 71.3).

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 (Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian).

Is the dignity of the Catholic Church, dearest brother, to be laid aside, is the faithful and uncorrupted majesty of the people placed within it, and the priestly authority and power also, all to be laid aside for this, that those who are set without the Church may say that they wish to judge concerning a prelate in the Church? heretics concerning a Christian? wounded men about a whole man? maimed concerning a sound man? lapsed concerning one who stands fast? guilty concerning their judge? sacrilegious men concerning a priest? (Epistle 54.18).

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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