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JULI-SEPTEMVRI / JulY-SepTemBeR 2014 17 RelIgIouS eDuCATIoN The great defender of the Catholic Church at this time was Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage (d. 258), who himself died a martyr's death after opposing the so-called "pure" Church of Novation in Rome which opposed the reintegra- tion of the "lapsed" into the communion of the Church. Although a great reader of the theology of Tertullian, Cyprian defended the Catholic Church of the apostolic and episcopal succession against the spiritual- istic "pure" churches of the self-styled maximalists. He in- sisted that the Church, as Ch- rist, exists to save sinners and that "outside of the Church the- re is no salvation." (Letter 73) Does he who does not hold this unity of the Church think that he holds the faith? Does he who strives against and resists the Church trust that he is in the Church . . .? This unity we ought to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the Church, that we may also prove the episcopacy to be one and undivided… The episco- pate is one, each part of which is held wholly by each one. The Church also is one… (On the Unity of the Church 4, 5) It is not possible to have God as Father who does not have the Church as mother. (On the Unity of the Church 6) He is not a Christian who is not in the Church of Christ. (Letter 55) Development of Theology The third century also witnessed the emergence of the first formal school of Christian theology. It was located in Africa, in Alexandria, founded by Pantaenus, developed by Clement (d. 215), and crowned by the outstanding theologian and scholar Origen (d. 253). Whereas Tertullian, the father of Latin theology, absolutely rejected any alliance between "Athens and Jerusalem," that is, between pagan philosophy and Christian revelation, the Alexandrians insisted that Greek philosophy was a sound preparation for the Christian Gospel and that the truths of the pagans could be and should be united to and fulfilled in the truths of the Christian faith. Thus, Origen wrote to his disci- ple Saint Gregory the Wonderworker: I desire you to take from Greek philosophy those spheres St. Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage JULI-SEPTEMVRI / JulY-SepTemBeR 201417

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