Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus

Cyprian
Bishop of Carthage
See	Carthage
Appointed	248 or 249 AD
Term ended	September 14, 258 AD
Predecessor	Donatus I
Successor	Carpophorus
Personal details
Born	c. 210 AD Carthage (present-day Tunisia)
Died	September 14, 258 AD Carthage (present-day Tunisia)
Sainthood
Feast day	16 September (Roman Catholic Church) and (Lutheran)
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church Roman Catholic Church
Title as Saint	Bishop and martyr

Cyprian (Latin: Thaschus Cæcilius Cyprianus; c. 200 – September 14, 258 AD) was bishop of Carthage and a notable Early Christian writer of Berber descent, 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. The Plague of Cyprian is named after him, owing to his description of it.

Cyprian was born into a rich, pagan, Berber, Carthage family 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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