During the ten years that Cyprian was bishop of Carthage (249-258) there were five bishops of Rome (Fabian, Cornelius, Lucius I, Stephen I and Sixtus II). Cyprian's literary output deals with some of the most challenging issues faced by pre-Nicene Christianity - the Decian persecution and the problem of lapsed Christians, and the subsequent so-called rebaptism controversy. This book investigates the history of Cyprian's interactions with, as well as attitudes towards, each of those Roman bishops. Many previous attempts at explaining Cyprian's point of view with regard to the role and position of the church of Rome have concentrated on Cyprian's use of terms like cathedra Petri, primatus, and ecclesia principalis in De unitate. Here it is argued that Cyprian's understanding of these terms and of papal primacy in general is best determined from the wider context of how actually he interacted with the bishops of Rome, as illustrated in his letters. The conclusions reached here, after a thorough re-examination of Cyprian's treatises and letters, is that Cyprian often regarded having the support of the Roman church as being crucial in him being able to manage the affairs of his own church in Carthage and the other churches of North Africa, because Rome was a large, prestigious and influential church. Yet, Cyprian's disagreement with a number of Rome's positions reveals that he did not believe it had a jurisdictional primacy over churches outside its own prouincia. Cyprian's ecclesiology was a collegial one where frequent letter-writing and synodal gatherings were the means by which decisions could be reached and implemented.

Geoffrey D Dunn is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Cairns. He is currently an Australian Research Council-funded Australian Research Fellow based at the Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University. His research interest is on Jews and Christians in late antiquity, Christians in Roman North Africa, and currently on fifth-century papacy.