ef Tertullian was the first
who definitely regarded ascetic performances as propitiatory offerings
and ascribed to them the "potestas reconciliandi iratum deum."[270] But
he himself was far from using this fatal theory, so often found in his
works, to support a lax Church practice that made Christianity consist
in outward forms. This result did not come about till the eventful
decades, prolific in new developments, that elapsed between the
persecutions of Septimius and Decius; and in the West it is again
Cyprian who is our earliest witness as to the new view and
practice.[271] In the first place, Cyprian was quite familiar with the
idea of ascetic propitiations and utilised it in the interest of the
Catholicity of the Church; secondly, he propounded a new theory of the
offering in the cultus. As far as the first point is concerned,
Cyprian's injunctions with regard to it are everywhere based on the
understanding that even after baptism no one can be without sin (de op.
et cleemos. 3); and also on the firm conviction that this sacrament can
only have a retrospective virtue. Hence he concludes that we must
appease God, whose wrath has been aroused by sin, through performances
of our own, that is, through offerings that bear the character of
"satisfactions." In other words we must blot out transgressions by
specially meritorious deeds in order thus to escape eternal punishment.
These deeds Cyprian terms "merita," which either possess the character
of atonements, or, in case there are no sins to be expiated, entitle the
Christian to a special reward (merces).[272] But, along with
_lamentationes_ and acts of penance, it is principally alms-giving that
forms such means of atonement (see de lapsis, 35, 36). In Cyprian's eyes
this is already the proper satisfaction; mere prayer, that is,
devotional exercises unaccompanied by fasting and alms, being regarded
as "bare and unfruitful." In the work "de opere et eleemosynis" which,
after a fashion highly characteristic of Cyprian, is made dependent on
Sirach and Tobias, he has set forth a detailed theory of what we may
call alms-giving as a _means of grace_ in its relation to baptism and
salvation.[273] However, this practice can only be viewed as a means of
grace in Cyprian's sense in so far as God has accepted it, that is,
pointed it out. In itself it is a free human act. After the Decian
persecution and the rearrangement of ecclesiastical affairs necessitated
by it, works and alms