OF THE UNCOMMON LIFE OF CLERICS. – It is an admonition that begins with the words “Fili carissimi”: “ne clerici cum feminis commorentur” (ch. 1). The book is falsely attributed to St CYPRIAN, and only in the twelfth century does it appear among his works. The author, probably from the end of the third century, was a bishop who knew the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian. The work was known to St Caesarius of Arles. The attributions to the Donatist Macrobius (Harnack) and to Novatian (Blacha) are untenable.
BIBL.: H. Koch, Cyprianische Untersuchungen (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 4), Bonn 1926, p. 426 sq. On the problem of the “synesacati” cf. H. Achelis, Virgines subintrodutae (ibid.), Leipzig 1902, p. 35. More recently, Bengt Melin, Studia in Corpus Cyprianeum. Commentario academico, Uppsala 1946, has shown (pp. 213 sq.) that the author of De singularitate clericorum is identical with that of the fourth pseudo-Cyprianic epistle (ed. G. Hartel, III [CSEL, 3], pp. 274-82). Erik Peterson