Aurelius of Carthage: The Illiterate Church Lector and Confessor

 

Add. 40165 A 
4th century fragments of Cyprians letters  
used as flyleaves for a 12th-century Latin manuscript

At around 250 CE Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, wrote to his Church to inform them of the appointment of a young man named Aurelius to the office of lector. That is someone who read out the scriptures to the congregation at the time they were gathering for worship.

"In the ordinations of clerics, dearly beloved Brethren, we are accustomed to consult you in advance and in common council to weigh the characters and merits of each one." (Ep. 38)

Cyprian goes on to share in the letter that Aurelius was "twice confessed and twice glorious in the victory of his confession" (Ep. 38). It was during this time that Christians were under extreme pressure to make sacrifices to the God's or face repercussions. This was due to an imperial edict given by Emperor Decius in order to gain favor from the God's towards the troubled Roman Empire (see posts here and here). Apparently Aurelius had suffered under this edict but had remained firm in the faith and had not recanted belief; a confessor. Cyprian greatly admired Aurelius for his courage and because of this wanted to go ahead and ordain him to the office before he had consulted with the other leaders as was the custom.

"Such a one was deserving of the higher steps of clerical ordination and a greater promotion, not so considered for his years, but for his merits. But, in the meantime, it seemed right for him to start with the office of reading since nothing was more becoming also to the voice which confessed God with glorious praise than to sound Him forth through the celebrating of the divine readings, after the sublime words which bespoke martyrdom for Christ: to read the Gospel of Christ whence martyrs are made, to come to the pulpit after the scaffold; . . . Know, therefore, dearly beloved that he has been ordained by me and by colleagues who were present. . . . And since joy is always hastening, and rejoicing cannot brook delays, in the meantime, he reads for us on Sunday, that is, he is auspicious for peace while he dedicates the reading." (Ep. 38)

It is obvious that Aurelius is capable of reading out a text (presumably in Latin) because Cyprian is fully expecting him to do so the next Sunday after he sent this letter. What is strange however is that in a letter to the Church in Rome, Cyprian mentions that a certain Lucian (another confessor) had written many petitions in behalf of others who were imprisoned.

"Many petitions, written in the handwriting of this same Lucian, have also been given in the name of Aurelius, a youth who suffered tortures, because the latter did not know how to write." (Ep. 27).

This same Aurelius, who was perfectly capable at reading, did not know his letters and had to have a certain Lucian write a petition on his behalf. This does seem strange to us in the twenty-first century, accustomed to learning to read and write together. This was not the case in the ancient world. These two skills were often acquired separately and with varying degrees of competency (Cribiore, 9-10). Cyprian presents this information normally and does not indicate that this circumstance is exceptional. This might also help explain the kinds of features that we see in our earliest copies of the New Testament writings. These often exhibit reading aids, spaces between words, and other kinds of limited punctuation (see here). These may have been present to assist those who had limit education, who could read at a basic level, but had not received schooling in the ability to write, just like we see in the case of Aurelius of Carthage.

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St. Cyprian, Letters 1-81, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Sister Rose Bernard Donna, trans. New York: Catholic University of America Press, 1964).

Cribiore, Rafaella. Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta: Scholar's Press, 1996).

Christian Networks and the Circulation of Christian Books

 

Sailing ship, 1st cen. AD (Pompeian tomb of Naevoleia Tyche Museo Della Civiltà Romana)

I recently learned of a fascinating account of Christians responding in various ways to Roman Imperial persecution in an excellent chapter by Jakob Engberg in a recent work.

"Caring for African Confessors in Exile: the Ministry of Numeria and Candida during the Decian Persecution (Cyprian, Epistulae 21-22)," pages 267-293 in Carmen Angela Cvetković and Peter Gemeinhardt, eds, Episcopal Networks in Late Antiquity: Connection and Communication Across Bounderies (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte vol. 137. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019)

After a military coup, Decius became the new Caesar of the Roman Empire in 249 CE. During this time, there were a series of revolts across the Empire and the Goths invaded Moesia and Thrace. In response to the unrest Decius issued an edict requiring all those in the Empire (not to include the Jewish people) to make sacrifices to the Gods in order to bring their favor on the troubled Empire (Engberg, 267). Decius set up an entire bureaucratic infrastructure to oversee this requirement and would issue certificates of compliance to those who would render the honor to the Gods. There are several of these certificates, or libelli, extant on papyrus (see here). Christians responded in different ways as Cyprian informs us in his treatise "On the Lapsed "(he was bishop of Carthage at the time); from actually performing the sacrifices, to bribery, having a certificate forged, or having another person perform the sacrifices in the Christian's place.

The pressures that Christians endured during this time must have been intense. Cyprian preserves a series of letters (Ep 20 and 21) that give a contemporary account of three African siblings caught up in this difficulty. They concern a man named Celerinus, who has two sisters that, at that time (ca. 250 CE), were living in Rome. In Cyprian's epistle 20 is preserved a letter from Celerinus to a Christian named Lucian who had been imprisoned after confessing himself a Christian and refusing to sacrifice to the Gods.

"Celerinus to Lucian, greeting. In writing this letter to you, my lord and brother, I have been rejoicing and sorrowful — rejoicing in that I had heard that you had been tried on behalf of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, and had confessed His name in the presence of the magistrates of the world; but sorrowful, in that from the time when I was in your company I have never been able to receive your letters."

Celerinus entreats Lucian to pray for God's forgiveness on behalf of his two sisters currently living in Rome; Numeria who gave in and sacrificed to the God's but had since repented; and Candida who bribed her way out of the sacrifice (or possibly payed to have a libelli forged). In order to give proof of his sister's repentance, Celerinus informs Lucian of their recent service to a group of persecuted Christians.

"For this, my lord and brother, you ought to know, that it is not I alone who ask this on their behalf, but also Statius and Severianus, and all the confessors who have come thence hither from you; to whom these very sisters went down to the harbour and took them up into the city, and they have ministered to sixty-five, and even to this day have tended them in all things, For all are with them. But I ought not to burden that sacred heart of yours any more, since I know that you will labour with a ready will."

Apparently, there was a group of 65 Christians who were likely Africans themselves, some of them Lucian knew, that had travelled by ship to Rome in order to escape persecution, or because they were formally exiled (Engberg, 271).

The letter from Lucian to Celerius in response is preserved in Cyprian's epistle 21. Lucian agreed to grant this request.

"And therefore, beloved brother, greet Numeria and Candida, who (shall have peace ) according to the precept of Paulus, and the rest of the martyrs whose names I subjoin."

Lucian also mentions some of the tortures that he and his other fellow Christian prisoners endured.

"[B]y the command of the emperor we were ordered to be put to death by hunger and thirst, and were shut up in two cells, that so they might weaken us by hunger and thirst. Moreover, the fire from the effect of our torture was so intolerable that nobody could bear it. But now we have attained the brightness itself. . . . Bassus in the dungeon of the perjured, Mappalicus at the torture, Fortunio in prison, Paulus after torture, Fortunata, Victorinus, Victor, Herennius, Julia, Martial, and Aristo, who by God's will were put to death in the prison by hunger, of whom in a few days you will hear of me as a companion. For now there are eight days, from the day in which I was shut up again, to the day in which I wrote my letter to you. For before these eight days, for five intervening days, I received a morsel of bread and water by measure."

Lucian's letter is ended by a long list of names to whom Celerinus was to greet on Lucian's behalf. This reveals that there was a large network of Christians in North Africa and in Rome that know each other and communicate regularly through letters. Celerinus mentions his letters several times,

". . . and I took notice of them in my letters . . . before my letters find you in this world . . ."

Celerinus also mentions that he has written letters to other mutual Christian brethren.

"Your brethren Calphurnius and Maria, and all the holy brethren, salute you. For you ought to know this too, that I have written also to my lords your brethren letters. which I request that you will deign to read to them."

These letters he must have appended to the letter he wrote to Lucian and he expected Lucian to read these out to them.

Lucian makes mention of letters that he and his fellow Christian prisoners wrote and sent out to the community in order encourage fellow believers.

"Moreover, all of us whom the Lord has condescended in such tribulation to call away, by our letters, by mutual agreement, have given peace to all."

These social networks that spanned the Mediterranean and two major Roman city centers (Rome and Carthage) were in constant communication with each other through the exchange of letters, word of mouth, and through acts of service and hospitality. These networks could very easily be avenues by which copies of the Christian scriptures were distributed and disseminated readily and broadly throughout the Roman Empire as Christians fled persecution, were exiled, and visited each other. Not only would this ensure the continued spread and dissemination of the New Testament writings, but it would also provide a check against the "macro-level" alteration of the text of these documents as I argued in my recent article.

"Exposing Textual Corruption: Community as a Stabilizing Aspect in the Circulation of the New Testament Writings during the Greco-Roman Era" Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43.2 (2020): 266-298

Certificates of Pagan Worship

P.Mich inv 158. Certificate of Sacrifice from the Decian era.

During his reign (249-251 CE), Emperor Decius ordered that everyone in the Roman Empire was required to make a sacrifice to the Gods. An official record of this sacrifice was to be made and submitted to the local bureaucracy. Several examples of these "Certificates of Sacrifice" (Latin: libelli) have been preserved, likely due to the vast numbers that must have flooded the many local administrative offices of the Roman Provinces. Here is a typical example of a lebellus below, P. Mich inv 158.

"τοῖς ἐπὶ θυσιῶν κώμης
Θεαδελφίαςπαρὰ Αὐρηλίας Βελλι̣ᾶ̣ Πετερήως καὶ τῆς ταύτης
θυγατρὸς Καπῖνις ἀὶ θύουσε τοῖς θεοῖς διετελέσαμεν καὶ νῦν ἐπὶ παρόντων ὑμῶν κατὰ τὰ προστεταγμένα ἔσπισα καὶ ἔθυσα καὶ ἐγευσάμην τῶν εἱερων καὶ ἀξιῶ ὑμᾶς
ὑποσημιώσαστε ἡμῖν. διευτυχ(εῖτε).
(hand 2) Αὐρήλιοι Σερῆνος καὶ Ἑρμᾶς εἴδαμεν ὑμᾶς θυσιάζοντος
(hand 3) Ἑρμᾶς σ(εσ)η(μείωμαι).
(hand 1) (ἔτους) α Αὐτοκράτορος Καίσαρος
Γαίου Μεσίου Κυίντου {Τρ[αιανοῦ]}
Τραιανοῦ Δεκίου Εὐσεβοῦς
Εὐτυχοῦς Σεβαστοῦ
Παῦνι κζ."

Here is an English translation of the libellus.

"To those in charge of the sacrifices of the village Theadelphia, from Aurelia Bellias, daughter of Peteres, and her daughter, Kapinis. We have always been constant in sacrificing to the gods, and now too, in your presence, in accordance with the regulations, I have poured libations and sacrificed and tasted the offerings, and I ask you to certify this for us below. May you continue to prosper.;
(2nd hand) We, Aurelius Serenus and Aurelius Hermas, saw you sacrificing.;
(3rd hand) I, Hermas, certify.;
(1st hand) The 1st year if the Emperor Caesar Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius Pius Felix Augustus, Pauni 27." (P.Mich inv 158)

(http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.mich;3;158)

Though P.Mich inv 158 is from the Fayyum region of Egypt, the lebelli were, of course, used even father west in Carthage. At this time Cyprian of Carthage felt it necessary to address this issue of offering sacrifices to the gods in his treatise "On the Lapsed." In chapter 27 he mentions a specific practice that Christians (in Carthage at least) were doing as a response to the moral delima.

"27. Nor let those persons flatter themselves that they need repent the less, who, although they have not polluted their hands with abominable sacrifices, yet have defiled their conscience with certificates. That profession of one who denies, is the testimony of a, Christian disowning what he had been. He says that he has done what another has actually committed; and although it is written, You cannot serve two masters, Matthew 6:24 he has served an earthly master in that he has obeyed his edict; he has been more obedient to human authority than to God. It matters not whether he has published what he has done with less either of disgrace or of guilt among men." (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050703.htm)

Here Cyprian mentions two types of deceptions. 1) christians forging a libelus and submitting it to the authorities, 2) having someone else perform the sacrifice in their place. Both of these Christian responses were unacceptable to Cyprian. 

One small ellement of this whole affair is this, how did Cyprian know that Christians were forging these libelli? My guess is that some, presumably overcome with guilt, were approaching their local Church leaders to ask for forgiveness. No matter how these actions of forgery came to light, it is an interesting example of the ways in which allegedly sinful actions of Christians were exposed within Christian these communities. In this case the sin involved a textual deception, the forging of documents. Perhaps the same type of exposure would occur if Christians were to, say, forge a Gospel, or significantly alter the text of a Gospel or other Christian writing.