Cyprian (Latin: Thaschus Cæcilius Cyprianus; c. 200 – September 14, 258 AD) was bishop of Carthage and an important Early Christian writer, many of whose Latin works are extant. He was born around the beginning of the 3rd century in North Africa, perhaps at Carthage, where he received a classical education. Soon after converting to Christianity, he became a bishop in 249. A controversial figure during his lifetime, his strong pastoral skills, firm conduct during the Novatianist heresy and outbreak of the plague, and eventual martyrdom at Carthage vindicated his reputation and proved his sanctity in the eyes of the Church. His skillful Latin rhetoric led to his being considered the pre-eminent Latin writer of Western Christianity until Jerome and Augustine.
Cyprian was born into a rich pagan family of Carthage, sometime during the early third century. His original name was Thascius; he took the additional name Caecilius in memory of the priest to whom he owed his conversion. Before his conversion, he was a leading member of a legal fraternity in Carthage, an orator, a “pleader in the courts,” and a teacher of rhetoric. After a “dissipated youth,” Cyprian was baptised when he was thirty-five years old, c. 245 AD. After his baptism, he gave away a portion of his wealth to the poor of Carthage, as befitted a man of his status.
In the early days of his conversion he wrote an Epistola ad Donatum de gratia Dei and the Testimoniorum Libri III that adhere closely to the models of Tertullian, who influenced his style and thinking. Cyprian described his own conversion and baptism in the following words:
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Keywords: Cyprian, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Ante-Nicene, anti-nicene, Ante-Nicean, anti-nicean, before Nicene, Before Nicean, Before Nicean creed, Nicean creed, Nicene creed, Before Nicene creed, Early church, Early christianity, Prenicene, Pre-nicene, Pre-nicean, Prenicean, early church father, Apostolic Age, Before Nicea, Before Nicaea, Church Father, Apostolic Fathers, anti-nicene fathers, anti-nicean fathers, Apostolic Church, Apostolic church father
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