DE SINGULARITATE CLERICORUM. — This is an admonition that begins with the words « Filii carissimi »: « ne clerici cum feminis commorentur » (ch. 1). The book is falsely attributed to s. Cipriano, and it appears among the works of the latter only in the 12th century. Its author, probably from the end of the 3rd century, was a bishop who knew the works of Tertullian and Cipriano. The work was known to s. Cesario di Arles. The attributions to the Donatist Macrobius (Harnack) and to Novatian (Blacha) are untenable.
BIBL.: H. Koch, Cyprianische Untersuchungen (Arbeits zur Kirchengeschichte, 4), Bonn 1926, pp. 426 ff. On the problem of the « syneisacta », cf. H. Achelis, Virgines subintroductas (ibid.), Lipsia 1902, p. 35. Most recently, Bengt Melin, Studia la Corpus Cyprianum. Commentatio academica, Uppsala 1946, has demonstrated (pp. 213 ff.) 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).