Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (d. 258), was the most influential churchman in mid third-century North Africa, a martyr of Valerian's persecution, and a major influence on Augustine and other Latin Christian writers. In this monograph Benjamin Safranski embarks on a two-fold historical and theological project: to explain what Cyprian thought about bishops, and how he and his fellow bishops dealt in practice with fractious clerics and with doctrinal deviancy; and to re-examine the reception of Cyprian's ecclesiology by the twentieth-century Russian Orthodox émigré and theologian, Nicolas Afanasiev.

Safranski's analysis of Cyprian's episcopacy occupies four of five chapters. Chapter i focuses on bishops themselves, describing Cyprian's view of the episcopate, the nature and basis of episcopal unity and the practical means by which that unity was maintained. Chapter ii treats the episcopal college: Cyprian's conviction of ‘the fundamental equality of bishops’ (p. 38), the role of a de facto provincial hierarchy and of Rome and (in greater depth than in chapter i) how Cyprian described the unity of bishops in sacraments, doctrine and what Cyprian called the uinculum unitatis. The next two chapters offer a two-part examination of what Safranski terms ‘exercises of collegial authority’. Chapter iii analyses several incidents (above all, the Novatian and Felicissimian schisms, the deposition of the Spanish bishops Basilides and Martialis and the controversy over Marcianus of Arles) that saw Cyprian and his fellow bishops disciplining other bishops. Here, Safranski's concern is historical: to explain how the unity and independent Petrine authority of bishops worked out in practice, especially in those few cases that saw Cyprian intervening in other bishops’ sees. In chapter iv, the argument takes a more theoretical turn. Safranski seeks to explain why Cyprian could sanction the deposition of Marcianus for his support of Novatian, and yet did not take so strict a line against those who disagreed with him over the rebaptism of heretics. Safranski suggests that Cyprian saw the consensus of bishops – expressed in synod and ‘strengthened’ by Novatian's excommunication – as what defined ‘the boundaries of acceptable Christian practice’ (p. 145). Consensus was lacking on the rebaptism issue, which limited Cyprian's response to Stephen of Rome.

The lengthy chapter v shifts to Nicolas Afanasiev, whose ‘eucharistic ecclesiology’ led him to blame Cyprian for inaugurating a ‘universal ecclesiology’ that divided the Church into many local organisations headed by bishops and ruled by law rather than love. Recapitulating Afanasiev's thought with many helpful quotations, Safranski summarises its reception in Orthodox and Roman Catholic theology, before critiquing it on the basis of his own historical reconstruction. In fact, Safranski argues, Afanasiev misunderstood Cyprian, who also exalted the local church and grounded the unity of the churches in love – but a love tempered by a zeal for unity and for ‘uniformity in certain areas’ (p. 194). The conclusion suggests avenues for future scholarship, on Cyprian and on Afanasiev's ecumenical ecclesiology.

Safranski has produced a solid and useful overview of Cyprian's views on bishops and their relationships. His account of Cyprian's attitude toward the Roman bishopric is nuanced, and shores up the scholarly consensus – challenged by a few Roman Catholic writers, with whom Safranski engages – that Cyprian was not a proto-papalist. The chapter on Afanasiev was (to an historian otherwise unversed in that debate) both lucid and interesting; there clearly is more work to be done on modern theological appropriation of third-century Latin Christianity, and Safranski has made a good beginning to that project. More extensive engagement with Allen Brent's picture of a Roman, bureaucratic Cyprian – who, Safranski notes in the introduction, rather resembles Afanasiev's Cyprian – would have enriched Safranski's discussion, especially for the historian readers of this Journal. That said, scholars of Cyprian will wish to read Safranski's book, not least for his thorough engagement with the main church-historical works (by Maurice Bévenot, Geoffrey Dunn, and others) that handle Cyprian's concept of episcopacy and his interactions with other bishops. The book should help to stimulate the investigation into Cyprian's own theology and his modern theological relevance which Safranski encourages in his conclusion.