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formulation with its eyes focused on the rear-view mirror. Consequently, any clear
understanding of recent statements of the RCC regarding other religions must begin with the
affirmations and even the musings of the early Church fathers and the subsequent development
of their thought through the middle ages and into the modern era. Accordingly, the first section
of this paper provides a brief summary of Roman Catholic theological development. To be more
specific, this introduction will locate the issue within the context of extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
For the fundamental question at stake historically, and even in the current conversation, is: Can
persons be saved outside of or apart from the Roman Catholic Church?
While it was not Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) who began the discussion of this issue, it is
to his name that extra ecclesiam is attached historically. Cyprians concern was for those
heretics and schismatics who found themselves outside the church, primarily because of their
own voluntary separation from it. He writes:
Whoever breaks with the Church and enters on an adulterous union, cuts himself off from
the promises made to the Church; and he who has turned his back on the Church of Christ
shall not come to the rewards of Christ: he is an alien, a worldling, an enemy. You
cannot have God for your Father if you have not the Church for your mother. . . .
Whoever breaks the peace and harmony of Christ acts against Christ; whoever gathers
elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. . . . If a man does not keep
this unity, he is not keeping the law of God; he has lost his faith about Father and Son, he
has lost his life and his soul.
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Such an unequivocal statement makes Cyprians intention clear--those outside the Catholic
Church are not saved. Nevertheless, it is also important to recognize, as Francis Sullivan has
argued in his excellent work, Salvation Outside the Church? The Tracing of the History of the
Catholic Response, exactly whom Cyprian has in his sights. His target is heretics and
schismatics, not pagans or Jews, the point being that his contentions only address those who
know about the Catholic Church and reject it.