I flew by Steve Ray’s site and noted something odd. There is a sorta random quote generator, “Quote of the Moment,” and the one I saw was this:
If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?”
St. Cyprian, Unity of the Catholic Church
So I look at this quote and think to myself that anyone who has gone past the quote-book stage of reading Cyprian knows what he said about Stephen; they also know that Cyprian believed himself to sit on Peter’s seat as the bishop of Carthage, and that the unity of Peter was expressed not in the person of the bishop of Rome, but in all the bishops of the Church. So, why have such a quote, unless the assumption is that the majority of readers are simply not going to have the context to realize that Cyprian is a prime witness against Roman supremacy? It is a bit like the alleged Augustinian line, “Rome has spoken, the case is closed.” Myths die hard.
