Date

4-7-2026

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Theology and Apologetics (PhD)

Chair

Edward Lee Smither

Keywords

Tertullian, Cyprian, Christian leadership, pastoral leadership, persecution, martyrdom, oppression, Roman North Africa, North African Christianity, early Christianity, patristics, ecclesiology, church discipline, apostasy, the lapsed, pastoral theology, comparative study

Disciplines

History of Christianity | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

This dissertation examines Christian leadership during persecution through a comparative study of Tertullian and Cyprian in Roman North Africa in the late second and mid third centuries. Although both figures are central to early Christian theology and ecclesiology, their leadership is often assessed without sustained attention to the pressures created by persecution.

Using a historical and theological approach, the dissertation examines the writings and ministerial actions of Tertullian and Cyprian as responses formed under conditions of hostility. Close engagement with their treatises, letters, and apologetic works shows how persecution influenced their understanding of martyrdom and apostasy and guided their handling of discipline, unity, and sacramental practice. Tertullian emerges as a prophetic and rigorist leader who pressed the church toward uncompromising witness, while Cyprian appears as a pastoral administrator committed to unity and the restoration of those who lapsed under pressure. Together, their responses reveal distinct, yet complementary patterns of Christian leadership shaped by crisis and theological conviction.

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