SAINTS FOR THE WEEK.

September 16th.

SS. Cornelius & Cyprian.

These two contemporaries, martyred in 253 and 258 respectively, were linked by one particular issue: what to do with those Christians who lapsed through fear in time of persecution, and then wished to return?  An influential Roman priest, Novatian, maintained that they could not be forgiven (along with murderers, adulterers and those in second marriages).  Cornelius and Cyprian strongly took the opposite view.  Cornelius was elected Pope in 251, at the time of the persecution of the Emperor Decius.  In 253 he was exiled to Civitavecchia and from there wrote several times to Cyprian on the above-mentioned issue.  He died of ill-treatment and was held to be a martyr.  Cyprian, a brilliant thinker and speaker, was a native of Carthage in North Africa; he was converted to Christianity in 245 and only three years later was unanimously elected Bishop by the local Christian clergy and people.  He had to flee when the Decian persecution began, but encouraged his flock by letter.  He said that those who, through fear, had obtained false certificates stating that they had sacrificed to pagan gods should be re-admitted to the Church after a period of penance.  One of his priests, Novatus, wanted them re-admitted without any penance at all, which Cyprian held to be going too far.   In 257 a further persecution began, under Valerian; required to take part in pagan worship, Cyprian refused.  He was tried and put to death in 258, and a contemporary account of his passion survives.  Cyprian was a particular advocate of the unity of the whole Church, and was unable to accept that those baptised by heretics and schismatics could be seen as validly baptised.  Their baptism needed to be linked to the whole body of the Church.