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Works Cyprian of Carthage (200-258) Epistulae (CCEL) The Epistles of Cyprian
Epistle LXXV.

3.

Wherefore, since the Church alone has the living water, and the power of baptizing and cleansing man, he who says that any one can be baptized and sanctified by Novatian must first show and teach that Novatian is in the Church or presides over the Church. For the Church is one, and as she is one, cannot be both within and without. For if she is with Novatian, she was not with Cornelius. 1 But if she was with Cornelius, who succeeded the bishop Fabian by lawful ordination, and whom, beside the honour of the priesthood, the Lord glorified also with martyrdom, Novatian is not in the Church; nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeeding to no one, and despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, sprang from himself. For he who has not been ordained in the Church can neither have nor hold to the Church in any way.


  1. [A dilemma which should be borne in mind in studying the subsequent history of the Roman See and its rival popes.] ↩

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The Epistles of Cyprian

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Faculty of Theology, Patristics and History of the Early Church
Miséricorde, Av. Europe 20, CH 1700 Fribourg

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