On spine: St. Cyprian. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

The letters in this volume cover the period from mid-251 to 254, and reveal details of the persecution under Gallus, and the African Council meetings over the years 251-253.

The letters, of which eighty-one have come down to us, written from c.249 until his death in 258 A.D., may be found translated in this volume.

"Translation of St. Cyprian's works originally published as part of The Ante- Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers down to AD 325, Volume 5, 1885."

Written from Roman North Africa, primarily between 250 and 258, and meant to be circulated and copied, the four volumes of letters provide an entrée into Cyprian's social and mental world and a glimpse of some of the spiritual horizons of an articulate mid-third century provincial Roman. The first volume contains letters from the year 250. The second volume covers the period from approximately high summer of 250 to mid-251. The third volume covers the period from mid-251 to 254, and reveal details of the persecution under Gallus, and the African Council meetings over the years 251-253. The fourth volume covers letters composed over the years 254-258, when Cyprian was martyred.

St. Cyprian's writings portray vividly the life of the Christian church in the middle of the third century. The two pastoral addresses of this intensely devout bishop reveal the aftermath of the persecution by the Emperor Decius. +

St Cyprian, third-century bishop of Carthage, developed a theory of church unity almost universally accepted up to the European Reformation: to be a member of the body of Christ you needed to be in communion with a priest who was in communion with a bishop who in turn was incommunion with all other bishops in the world. But, how could you discern who was a legitimate bishop? And, on what kind of issue would it be right to break off communion? Additionally, could self-authenticating ministries, like those of martyrs and confessors who had suffered for the faith, supersede this order? Finally, did the Church need, and in what form, a universal bishop who could guarantee the integrity of the network of bishops? From back cover.