THE

TREATISES

OF

S. CECILIUS CYPRIAN,

BISHOP OF CARTHAGE, AND MARTYR,

TRANSLATED,

WITH NOTES AND INDICES.

OXFORD,

JOHN HENRY PARKER;

J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON.

MDCCCXL.

PREFACE.

THE Treatises of St. Cyprian may suitably be preceded by the short Memoir of his life written by his Deacon Pontius, and the Proconsular Acts of his Martyrdom.

The Memoir is recommended to our attention, not so much by any special excellence in itself, as by the circumstance that it is written by one who was about the Bishop's person, who attended him in exile, and who was a witness of his death. The reader need scarcely be reminded, that the Deacon in St. Cyprian's age, as afterwards, was the personal attendant and minister of the Bishop; thus St. Laurence is celebrated as Deacon or Archdeacon to Sextus or Xystus, Bishop of Rome and Martyr, the contemporary of St. Cyprian; and St. Athanasius as Deacon to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, in the Council of Nicæa.

The Proconsular Acts are considered to be the substance of the original, with the incidental additions of subsequent times b