CIPRIANO. - A presbyter to whom s. Gerolamo sent epistle 140. They had previously already corresponded by letter and later became personally acquainted, forming a friendship. Gerolamo praises him as most learned in the law of God. Thus C. asked him for a simple and straightforward explanation of Ps. 89. The aforesaid letter replies to this request (PL 22, 1166-79; and I. Hilberg: CSEL, LVI, 269-89).
The exegesis constantly takes into account the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the other versions. There are clear affirmations of the necessity of Grace in order to perform any good work: “He can do nothing good without Him who granted free will, undertaking not to deny His Grace for individual works, lest freedom of choice should become an occasion of injury to the Creator and of arrogance for him who was created free, yet in such a way as to have to acknowledge that he is nothing without God” (chap. 5). And again, toward the end: “Where are those who, boasting of the power of free will, make the Grace of God, which they believe they have attained, consist in having the power to do or not to do both good and evil?” Such vigorous affirmations recall the Pelagian controversy, in which s. Gerolamo took a most active part in defense of orthodoxy. According to Vallarsi, the epistle was written ca. 418, when the struggle against Pelagianism was still raging, which was in fact condemned in that very year, after the Council of Carthage, by Pope Zosimo in the Epistola tractoria. Michele Pellegrino