254–257

The rebaptism controversy: Cyprian and Stephen of Rome

The dispute concerned whether baptism performed by schismatics and heretics (for example, the Novatianists) was valid and whether converts should be baptized. Following the bishops of Carthage and Asia Minor, Cyprian held that baptism is true only in the one catholic Church, and received converts as catechumens; his opponents called this rebaptism. Stephen of Rome required only the laying on of hands as a sign of penance and threatened to break communion; at a council in Carthage in 256 Cyprian declared that each bishop is free to decide for himself. The dispute ended with the persecution of 257, the death of Stephen and the martyrdom of Cyprian; the sides tacitly kept their own views. In 314 the Council of Arles ruled that those baptized in the name of the Trinity should not be rebaptized, and according to Hall, here Rome's view prevailed over Cyprian's.