Sensitivity and Proclamation: Perspectives on Mission from the Writings of Cyprian

40 J Jayakiran Sebastian

J Jayakiran Sebastian

SENSITIVITY AND PROCLAMATION: Perspectives on Mission from the Writings of Cyprian*

Introduction: Methodological Considerations

the Church is by definition the locus of salvation, so that wherever salvation takes place there is the Church" (Pannikkar 1984 33)

" salus extra ecclesiam non est " (Cyprian, Letter 73 21) *

The contemporary relevance of those who struggled with issues of faith and identity in the early decades and centuries of the rise of Christianity cannot be underestimated (See eg Walls 1997) The proposed project outline for "Mission in the First Millennium" moves in the correct direction when it states

Putting Christian mission into historical perspective may inform today's discussion on Christian mission, vice versa, today's missionary experience may help to understand the missionary activity of the first millennium

In a recent article on Cyprian, Iain Torrance rightly notes that theological issues need to be "readdressed, in their own form, in each generation" (Torrance 1997 356)2 This point has been addressed by Robert M Grant, who, in commenting about those who wrote in the second century, affirmed

"Rev Dr J Jayakiran Sebastian is a presbyter of the Church of South India, and teaches in the Department of Theology and Ethics at United Theological College, Bangalore, India Like the paper ofWinrich Lahr, this paper was originally presented at the consultation on Mission in the First Millennium at Fitzwilham College, Cambridge, November 14-16, 1997

Mission Studies, Vol XV-2, 30, 1998

Sensitivity and Proclamation 41

They reached no solutions with direct "relevance" for twentieth-or twenty-first-century theology, but they stated perennial problems in fresh ways that only later became classical and offered possible moves toward dealing with them. Later Christians need to review their exegetical search in order to continue it (Grant 1990: 14).

For those of us coming from contexts where we have been the recipients of colonial and missionary activities, such methodological considerations have a deep relevance because they open up sometimes neglected dimensions connected with discussions regarding our self-understanding and identity. It is important to note that at the heart of the encounter between colonizers and missionaries in a strange land there lies a deep ambivalence which cannot be simply crudely reduced to either-or terms, an encounter which generated its own dynamics in relation to those who were at the receiving end.3

In attempting to analyze why it was important for me to wrestle with the legacy of Cyprian today, I wrote:

For us, attainable reappropriation of the patristic heritage has two possible routes to follow: firstly, the route through the heritage of the church or missionary society responsible for the work of evangelisation in the area from which we come—a task which will help clarify many of the perspectives and attitudes which have shaped the life and practice of the church in that area today, and a task which will indicate that the heritage was only partially or even selectively used. Secondly, a return to the wider patristic heritage directly, a task which is important because it tries to avoid the danger of partialization and selectivity, in order to achieve a broader and more comprehensive perspective regarding the rich and varied thinking that gave shape to the phenomenon called Christianity. Keeping in mind the evocative words of the cultural critic, Homi Κ. Bhabha, "Time-lag keeps alive the making of the past," words that are both an admonition and a challenge, I would suggest that both these tasks be undertaken, firstly, in order to explore and investigate both the local and contextual flavour, introduced through the particular perspectives, idiosyncrasies and doctrinal backgrounds of the missionary body; and secondly, so as to seek to ground one's identity today within the wider spectrum of the variegated heritage of the church (Sebastian 1997: 176-177).4

42 J. Jayakiran Sebastian

Returning to Cyprian To Move Forward

The writings, as well as a consideration of the life and death of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who was executed by the Roman authorities on 14 September, 258, provide us with a variety of issues that are instructive in our attempts to search for meanings and patterns in the life of the early church which are instructive in addressing issues and themes in the ongoing witness of the church today, especially in the context of religious and ideological pluralism in India.5 In this paper I propose to focus on two issues thrown up by the dispute that dominated the thinking and actions of Cyprian in the final years of his episcopate-the baptismal controversy.6

1. The Issue Regarding Consensus

How is it possible to build consensus within the church? After all, what strikes one when one reads the evidence from the New Testament and from the writings of the Fathers, is the diversity of seemingly irreconcilable ideas and opinions that existed within the church. To be sure, there are several instances when holding on to certain points of view proved to be irreconcilable with remaining in a wider fellowship. Nevertheless we have to reckon with the reality that to a large extent the church was able to contain within itself the diversity of opinions and ideas that were not only being expressed, but also affecting, directly and indirectly, the life and witness of the church.7

The baptismal controversy posed a number of challenges to the theological position of Cyprian, and raised fundamental questions regarding the position of the bishop of Rome at that time-Stephen. This was an issue to which Cyprian had to bring both theological ingenuity and pastoral sensitivity (See Bévenot 1978). However, it is at times when exasperation is at its height with those whom he considers to be part and parcel of the wider Christian fellowship, whom he expected to stand with him and his supporters, that he reiterates most forcefully his conviction that he will not judge or lay down rules for others. For the sake of concord, rather, and the bond of faith that binds colleagues within the episcopate, Cyprian tries hard not to quarrel with his colleagues and fellow bishops over this matter of heretical baptism: "We do our very best to refrain from quarreling over this question of heretics with our colleagues and fellow bishops; we keep with them the harmony God has ordained and the peace the Lord has given us . . . . Charity of spirit, the honour of our episcopal college, the bond of faith, the harmony of the episcopate, these we preserve in patience and gentleness"


(Cyprian, Letter 73.26.2 in Clarke 1989: 69). This does not mean that for Cyprian "anything goes." On the contrary, he clearly states in the conclusion of Letter 70 (which is a conciliar document addressed by thirty-two bishops led by Cyprian to their colleagues in Numidia), where in concluding there is a tone of admonition stating that "it is our duty also to gather; it is our duty also to judge." Interestingly this comment is linked with unity, but here not only with the unity of the church as such, but with the "unity of the Lord" (Cyprian, Letter 70.3.3 in Clarke 1989: 48). There is a tension in Cyprian between his attempts to preserve unity and his conviction that truth and not custom ought to prevail. For Cyprian the acknowledgment of the church as the bride of Christ implies that the bride be pure and undefiled, and if this implies a rejection of "custom" then custom should be rejected in order that truth would triumph (Cyprian, Letter 74.9 in Clarke 1989: 76).8

In the ecumenical movement, talk of consensus can easily degenerate into the attempt to produce a rather bland "committee theology." This is all the more so when we attempt to talk about a "common" mission. In this context we would do well to be reminded by Cyprian that the search for consensus is important, and that different points of view have to be taken seriously. Waiting for a consensus to emerge, however, may be a futile exercise, especially in a context where voices which represent a wide range of theological positions have to be accommodated. What one is called to affirm in such a context is that proclamation and sensitivity have to come into interaction with each other, bearing in mind the warning of the Indian theologian and ecumenical pioneer of inter-religious dialogue Stanley J. Samartha:

Perhaps this setting up of norms for belief and criteria for purity of doctrine has its merits. But all too often heresies of the past have been accepted as valid in later years, which of course is of no help to those already burned at the stake. Maybe this mood of open-endedness in complex matters of faith has some merit where such ultimate matters as the generosity of God's love and the infiniteness of God's mystery are concerned (Samartha 1991: 131).

The principle which Cyprian struggled to uphold is spelled out at the end of Letter 72, written to Stephen. Here, in spite of the tensions being generated, Cyprian writes:


We are not forcing anyone in this matter, we are laying down no law. For every appointed leader has in his governance of the Church the freedom to exercise his own will and judgement, while one day having to render an account to his conduct to the Lord (Cyprian, Letter 74.3.2 in Clarke 1989: 54).9

In India there is a growing impatience with the politics of consensus, especially on the part of those for whom justice and dignity has been denied for generations within the church—the former untouchables now proudly calling themselves Dalits. Recognizing that "between ten and fifteen percent of all Dalits in India are Christians" and "between two-thirds and three-quarters of all Christians in India are Dalits" (Webster 1994: back cover), the questions being asked include one regarding the futility of appealing to the better sense of those who have dominated the decision-making structures in the church for generations.10 Can the proclamation be liberative if it has not been sensitive to the realities within the church? What is the relationship between consensus and indifference in coming to an understanding regarding the mission of the church today?

2. The Issue of Ministry

A pointed observation on the Indian situation fifty years after Independence comes from the Indian systematic theologian O. V. Jathanna. Regretting the static nature of ministry in India, Jathanna asks how one can develop an effective pattern of ministry which can remain true to the Christian vision of reality and the understanding of the church's mission, while being "critically as well as creatively informed by the religio-cultural and socio-political ethos and insights of India . . . ." (Jathanna 1996: 17). Certainly one way of confronting what seem to be obstinate and inflexible structures is to raise the question as to how critical and creative insights can go along with the ritualistic side of ministry. For Cyprian, at the time of the baptismal controversy, the struggle was to affirm that things were not as they seemed, and that behind the ritual lay a world of meaning and interpretation. This was most clearly demonstrated at the time of the Council of Carthage on 1 September, 256, attended by eighty-seven bishops from North Africa, which discussed the baptismal issue (Sententiae LXXXVII episcoporum, text in von Soden 1909: 247-248). Though all the bishops supported the position of Cyprian on the baptismal issue, what I found instructive in my analysis is that the bishops did not function as "mere rubber stamps," but, in a variety of ways, using diverse methods, they sought to ground their arguments. In


other words, the issue forced them, individually, to theologically face the issue regarding the role and function of baptism.11

To a large extent what we read here is that Cyprian, who made the opening and closing statements, did not function as a bulldozer, but more as an enabler, creating a situation where the bishops could demonstrate that the issue at hand was something that concerned and affected them personally, and that they could draw on resources from the Bible, from their ministry and experiences, from exegetical insights, and from Christological beliefs to ground their convictions. In Letter 74, Cyprian, in talking about bishops who want to be faithful to divine principles, notes that "If in any manner the truth has grown faltering or shaky, we must go back to the Lord as our source, and to the tradition of the Gospels and the apostles. Let our conduct draw its rules from the same source from which our beginning and our precepts took their rise" (Letter 74.10.3 in Clarke 1989: 77). The reminder that our structures are not ends in themselves, but are derived, and that the sources from which they are derived ought not to be forgotten, is-for those of us who struggle with relevant and appropriate forms of ministry in a changing context~of particular value.

We need to be reminded that for Cyprian such convictions pushed the relationship between him and Stephen to the brink. Letter 75, written to Cyprian by Firmillian, testifies in striking detail as to what "Stephen's appalling discourtesy" to Cyprian meant.12 Can one talk about proclamation and sensitivity in such a context? Are they not contradictions in terms? If one proclaims one's cherished convictions too loudly, then one ends up hurting and alienating those who believe that they have been deafened, or overlooked, or not taken seriously. If one is over-sensitive then the only responsible manner of behavior would be to withdraw into quiet noncommittal passivity. In India, the "laboratory for dialogue," Paul F. Knitter notes that the paradox is that "it is precisely the difficulty or apparent impossibility of a liberative dialogue among religions in India that becomes the reason, or at least the pressing occasion, for its necessity" (Knitter 1995: 161).

While appreciating the flexibility and magnanimity that Cyprian very often showed, one should not be too quick to glorify him and to gloss over the strong strands of rigidity that characterize many aspects of his thinking and action. However, what emerges from an analysis of the baptismal controversy is that both the chief protagonists, Cyprian and Stephen, passionately believed that what they were standing for was the truth, which was crucial for the "health" of the church. Speaking from the perspective of a deep commitment to Christ, along with fundamental openness to other religions, Stanley J. Samartha offers the hermeneutic principle that "plurality


does not relativize Truth; it relativizes different responses to Truth" (Samartha 1996: 157). If this is affirmed, then we have to ask ourselves whether in talking about the forms and exercise of the ministry, especially in the relationship between ministry and mission, we have failed to adequately explore the possibility of renewal available in the sources, and whether we have been insensitive in understanding, drawing inspiration from, and integrating insights from other attempts, both within the church and elsewhere, of understanding the ways of God's dealing with humankind.

In concluding this paper, which has attempted to read Cyprian to help understand mission with the Indian context in mind, I can do no better than to conclude with Cyprian's own words:

Blessings that come from God cannot in any part be maimed or emasculated; in the case where there is complete and total faith on the parts of the giver and receiver alike, there cannot possibly occur any diminution in the draught drawn from God's bounteous flow. For washing away the stains of our sins in the sacrament of salvation is quite different from washing our flesh in an ordinary bath (Cyprian, Letter 69.12.2 [to Magnus] in Clarke 1989: 41).

Notes

1. Letter 73, written to Lubaianus, contains the quintessence of the baptismal controversy: the unflinching assertion that within the universal church there is one baptism, and that what is being practiced by Cyprian and those who follow his line of argumentation is not rebaptism but baptism. I have used the Latin text as edited byHartel(1871).

2. Torrance goes on: "This is an attempt to think together the ancient and modern approaches to problems which, if they are not the same (and they are not), at least cross over in interesting ways."

3. See the broad and sensitive analysis in Ferro 1997, passim. For an attempt to read the missionary encounter with India as the effort "to transplant the European church to India," see Dharmaraj 1993. At the same time the important insights and methodological warnings of David C. Scott on pre-colonial orientalism, especially in a context where the missionary does not initially create, but enters into, structures of authority, perceived or otherwise, must not be lost sight of. See


Scott 1996.

4. The quotation from Bhabha is from Bhabha 1994: 254. In a different context a resonating point has been made by Stephen Greenblatt who writes: "The fascination for me of the Renaissance was that it seemed to be powerfully linked to the present both analogically and causally. This two-fold link at once called forth and qualified my value judgements: called them forth because my response to the past was inextricably bound up with my response to the present; qualified them because the analysis of the past revealed the complex, unsettling historical geneology of the very judgements I was making. To study Renaissance culture, then, was simultaneously to feel more rooted and more estranged in my own values" (Greenblatt 1990: 77).

5. We need to remind ourselves that such concerns have their roots deep in the Christian past. See Wilken 1995.

6. For a detailed analysis of this controversy see Chapter Three, "An Analysis of the Source Material Dealing with the Baptismal Controversy" in Sebastian 1997: 55-134. A convenient summary of the background and progress of the baptismal controversy is provided by Burns 1993.

7. This issue has been recently addressed by Henn 1995.

8. Letter 74 was written to Pompeius, in response to his request to send him a copy of Stephen's letter to Cyprian. The principle being affirmed here is that recognizing that Christ is the one who said "I am the truth," then "a custom without truth is but error grown old" (Cyprian, Letter 74.9.2 in Clarke 1989: 76). It is in this letter that Cyprian forcefully states the basic tenets which ought to govern unity: " . . . the tradition handed down to us is that there is one God and one Christ, one hope and one faith, one Church and one baptism appointed only in that one Church. Whoever departs from that unity must be found in the company of heretics; and in defending heretics against the Church, he is launching an attack upon the sacred mystery of this divine tradition" (Cyprian, Letter 74.11.1 in Clarke 1989: 77).

9. For comments on this assertion and cross-references, see Clarke 1986: 196-197, note 95. The comment of Robert F. Evans must not be lost sight of: "Cyprian was entirely persuaded that 'concord' among the bishops was one of the marks of the Spirit's presence. The crucial question is whether such accord means agreement in theory and practice on important matters of Church discipline and of sacramental administration, or whether it means the preservation of unity in communion among bishops who agree to differ about such matters. Cyprian's letters give evidence of both views, but it is not right to say that one or the other wins out in the end. They both win, in different respects" (Evans 1972: 63).


10 From among the fast-growing literature in this area I mention only a few of the recent publications Massey 1995, Devasahayam, ed 1997, Clarke 1997, Shin 1997, Webster, Premrah et al, eds 1997 A book which incorporates the resistive dimensions of the Dalit consciousness through the symbol of the drum is Clarke 1998

11 I have analyzed and categonzed the "votes" of the bishops in detail in Sebastian 1997 109-120 For a thorough examination of the Council, including "Die Voten der Konzilsbischofe," see also Fischer 1984

12 See Letter 75, passim This phrase is from Letter 75 2 3 (Clarke 1989 79) For an analysis of this rupture as "excommunication," see Saumagne 1975 123-128

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Summary

In this article, J Jayakiran Sebastian studies Cyprian of Carthage's role in

the baptismal controversy in third century Africa in order to gam

enlightenment for the contemporary Indian situation regarding decisions by

consensus and issues of ministry "What is the relationship," Sebastian asks,

"between consensus and indifference in coming to an understanding

regarding the mission of the church today?" Have Indian Chnstians failed,

he asks further, "to adequately explore the possibility of renewal available

in the sources"? And have they "been insensitive in understanding, drawing

inspiration from, and integrating insights from other attempts, both within the

church and elsewhere, of understanding the ways of God's dealing with

humankind"?

^ s

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Sensitivity and Proclamation: Perspectives on Mission from the Writings of Cyprian

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