The Radical Resurgence

The Cyprian Model

Thus,  by the time of Cyprian’s rule as bishop of  Carthage in the middle of the third century, the distinction of function has   hardened into a separation and gradation of office: to move from one office to another is viewed as an advance or the result of the increased merit of the individual (Davies, p.133).

Cyprian’s response to the inheri­tance of the one-bishop-rule form of church government was to strengthen it by developing the authority of the bishop.  To support both con­cepts he defends the idea of an un­broken succession of bishops from Peter to the legitimate bishop in every Catholic church.  Furthermore, it is Cyprian who first formulates the unity of bishops into an organ­ization which represents the whole church:

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 . . . the episcopate is one, each part  of which is held by each one for the whole (quoted by Earl D. Radmacher in The Nature of the Church [Portland:  Western Bap­tist Press, 1972], p.32).

Having traced the growth of one-bishop-rule as seen in Ignatius and Cyprian, let us now turn to a brief analysis of the factors which may have stimulated this development.