'Abstain thee from alien water, and drink not from an alien fountain,' if, having left the sealed fountain of the Church, thou shalt take to thyself alien water as thine own, and dost pollute the Church with profane fountains? For when thou communicatest with the baptism of heretics, what else dost thou do than drink of their gulf and mire, and thyself, who wast cleansed by the sanctification of the Church, art defiled by the contacts of alien filth? Nor dost thou fear the judgment of God, bearing witness for heretics against the Church, when it is written: 'A false witness shall not be unpunished'? Nay rather, thou art worse than all heretics.
For when many of them, having recognized their error, come to thee that they may receive the true light of the Church, thou helpest the errors of those who come, and, the light of ecclesiastical truth being obscured, thou heapest up the darkness of heretical night; and although they confess that they are in sins and have no grace, and on that account come to the Church, thou withdrawest from them the remission of sins which is given in baptism, while thou sayest that they are already baptized and have obtained the grace of the Church outside the Church. Nor dost thou understand that their souls shall be required from thy hand when the day of judgment comes, thou who hast denied the drink of the Church to the thirsting and hast been the cause of death to those wishing to live—and moreover thou art indignant. See with what
ignorance thou darest to rebuke those who strive for truth against falsehood. For who ought more justly to be indignant against another? He who upholds the enemies of God, or rather he who takes his stand against the enemies of God on behalf of the truth of the Church? Unless indeed it is manifest that the ignorant are also high-spirited and irascible, since through poverty of counsel and of speech they are easily turned to anger, so that of none other more than of thee may the divine Scripture say: 'A high-spirited man stirreth up strifes, and an angry man heapeth up sins.' For how great strifes and dissensions hast thou stirred up throughout the churches of the whole world? And how great a sin hast thou heaped up for thyself, when thou didst cut thyself off from so many flocks?
For thou hast cut off thyself; do not deceive thyself, since he is truly the schismatic who has made himself an apostate from the communion of ecclesiastical unity. For while thou thinkest that all can be kept off from thee, thou alone hast kept thyself off from all. Nor could even the precepts of the apostle conform thee to the rule of truth and peace, when he warns and says: 'I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye are called, with all humility of mind and meekness, with patience forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all.' How diligently has Stephen fulfilled these commands and salutary admonitions of the apostle, keeping humility of mind and meekness in the first place!
For what is more humble or more meek than to have dissented with so many bishops throughout the whole world, breaking peace with each by various kinds of discord—now with the Easterns, which we are confident is not hidden from you either; now with you who are in the south, from whom he received the legate bishops with patience and gentleness enough that he would not admit them even to the speech of common converse; and still further, mindful of love and charity, he charged the whole brotherhood that no one should receive them into his house, so that to those who came not only peace and communion but even shelter and hospitality should be denied!
This is to have kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace—to cut oneself off from the unity of charity, and to make oneself in all things a stranger to the brethren, and to rebel against the sacrament and bond of peace with the fury of discord! Can there be one body and one spirit in such a man, in whom perhaps that very soul is not one, being so slippery and changeable and uncertain? But as far as concerns him, let us leave him. Let us rather sift out that concerning which there is the greatest question. They who contend that those baptized by heretics ought to be received as having obtained the grace of lawful baptism, say that baptism is one to us and to them, and differs in nothing. But what says the apostle Paul? 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.'
If the baptism of heretics is one and the same with ours, then without doubt the faith also is one. But if the faith is one, then assuredly the Lord also is one. If the Lord is one, it follows that we should say that the baptism is one. But if this unity, which can in no way be separated and divided, is itself present even among heretics, why do we contend further? Why do we call them heretics and not Christians? Furthermore, since to us and to heretics there is neither one God, nor one Lord, nor one Church, nor one faith, nor even one spirit nor one body, it is manifest that baptism cannot be common to us and to heretics, who have nothing whatever in common.
And yet Stephen is not ashamed to afford patronage to such men against the Church, and, for the sake of maintaining heretics, to rend the brotherhood; and moreover to call Cyprian a false Christ and a false apostle and a deceitful worker: who, conscious that all these things were in himself, anticipated it, so that by a lie he might cast upon another those things which he himself, and deservedly, ought to hear. We wish thee good health, with all of us, together with all the bishops who are in Africa, and all the clergy and the whole brotherhood, that we may have thee united with us even from afar, perpetually of one mind and of one judgment.
Cyprian to Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Iader, Datívus, his fellow-bishops, likewise to the fellow-presbyters and deacons and the rest of the brethren established in the mine, martyrs of God the Father Almighty and of Jesus Christ our Lord and of God our Preserver: eternal greeting. Your glory indeed demanded, most blessed and most beloved brethren, that I myself ought to come to the sight and to the embrace of you, were it not that the bounds of the appointed place confined me also, banished for the confession of the Name.
But how I can, I present myself to you; and although it is not granted to come to you in body and step, yet in love and in spirit I come, expressing in letters my mind, by which I joyfully exult in these your virtues and praises, reckoning myself a partaker with you—if not in the suffering of the body, yet in the fellowship of charity.
Could I be silent and press down my voice in silence, when I learn so many and glorious things about my dearest ones, whom the divine favour has honoured—and of you a part has already gone before by the consummation of its martyrdom, about to receive from the Lord the crown of its merits; a part still lingers in the close confinement of prisons or in mines and chains, exhibiting through the very delays of torments greater proofs for the strengthening and arming of the brethren, advancing by the slowness of torments to fuller titles of merit, about to have as many rewards in the heavenly recompenses as you now number days in your sufferings?
That these things indeed have befallen you, most valiant and most blessed brethren, in proportion to the merit of your religion and faith, I do not wonder—that the Lord has thus advanced you to the lofty summit of glories by the honour of His own glorification, you who have always flourished in His Church with the tenor of faith preserved, firmly keeping the Lord's commandments: in simplicity innocence, in charity concord, modesty in humility, diligence in administration, vigilance in aiding the labouring, mercy in cherishing the poor, constancy in defending the truth, censure in the severity of discipline.
And lest anything for the example of good deeds should be lacking in you, even now in the confession of voice and the suffering of body you provoke the minds of the brethren to divine martyrdoms, showing yourselves leaders unto virtues: so that, while the flock follows its shepherds and imitates what it perceives done by its overseers, it may be crowned by the Lord with equal merits of obedience. But that, having been beaten with cudgels grievously and afflicted, you initiated the religious beginnings of your confession through penalties of this kind—this is no thing to be execrated by us. For the Christian body did not shudder at the cudgels, whose whole hope is in the wood. The servant of Christ acknowledged the sacrament of his salvation: redeemed by the wood unto eternal life, by the wood he was advanced to the crown.
But why is it any wonder if, being vessels of gold and silver, you have been consigned to the mine, that is, to the dwelling-place of gold and silver—except that now the nature of mines has been changed, and the places which before were wont to give gold and silver have begun to receive them? They also placed fetters upon your feet, and bound your happy limbs and the temples of God with infamous chains, as though the spirit too were bound with the body, or your gold were stained by the contact of iron. To men dedicated to God and testifying to their faith by religious virtue, these are ornaments, not chains; nor do they couple the feet of Christians unto infamy, but glorify them unto the crown. O feet happily bound, which are loosed not by a smith but by the Lord!
O feet that are happily bound, which are being guided along the road of salvation to paradise! O feet, bound for the present in the world, that they may be forever free with God! O feet held fast for a while by fetters and crossbars, yet soon to run swiftly to Christ along a glorious road! However long either jealous cruelty or spiteful malice may here hold you in its bonds and chains, you shall come quickly from this earth and these punishments to the kingdoms of heaven. In the mines the body is not cherished upon a bed and cushions, but it is cherished by the refreshment and consolation of Christ. Your limbs, worn out by labors, lie upon the ground, but it is no punishment to lie with Christ. Your members, ill-favored with filth and squalor, are foul for want of baths; but what is defiled outwardly in the flesh is washed clean inwardly in the spirit.
There the bread is scanty, yet man does not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. Clothing fails those who shiver with cold, but he who has put on Christ is both abundantly clothed and adorned. The hair of the half-shorn head bristles, but since the head of a man is Christ, whatever befits that head must needs be comely, because it is marked with honor for the Lord's name. All this disfigurement, detestable and loathsome to the heathen, with what splendor shall it be recompensed! This worldly and brief punishment, for how bright and eternal an honor's reward shall it be exchanged, when, according to the word of the blessed Apostle, the Lord shall transform the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of his glory.
But not even in this, most beloved brethren, can any loss of religion or of faith be felt, namely that there is now no opportunity given to the priests of God to offer and to celebrate the divine sacrifices. Nay rather, you do celebrate and offer to God a sacrifice both precious and glorious, and one that shall greatly profit you toward the recompense of heavenly rewards, since the divine Scripture speaks and says: A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise. This sacrifice you offer to God; this sacrifice you celebrate without ceasing day and night, being made victims to God and presenting your very selves as holy and unblemished offerings, as the Apostle exhorts and says:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God; and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For this is what pleases God above all; this is that in which by greater merits our works may go forward to win the favor of the will of God; this is the only thing whereby, for his great and saving benefits, they may render back to the Lord the homage of our faith and devotion, the Holy Spirit proclaiming and bearing witness in the Psalms: What shall I render, he says, to the Lord for all the things that he has rendered to me? I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Who would not gladly and readily take the cup of salvation? Who would not, rejoicing and glad, long to render something in his turn to his own Lord? Who would not bravely and steadfastly meet that death so precious in God's sight, to please the eyes of him who, looking down upon us from above in the contest for his name, approves us in our willingness, aids us in our striving, and crowns us in our victory, rewarding in us with the recompense of his fatherly goodness and tenderness whatever he himself has bestowed, and honoring what he himself has accomplished? For that it is his own, that we conquer and that we come to the palm of the greatest combat with the adversary subdued, the Lord declares and teaches in his Gospel, saying:
But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you. And again: Settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to make your defense; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist. In which indeed there is great confidence for those who believe, and the gravest fault for the faithless who do not believe him who promises that he will give his help to those who confess, nor again fear him who threatens eternal punishment to those who deny.
All these things, you most valiant and faithful soldiers of Christ, you have impressed upon our brethren, fulfilling by deeds what you had before taught in words, destined to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, as the Lord promises and says: He who shall do and so teach, shall be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And so, following your example, a numerous portion of the people has confessed together with you and has been crowned together with you, joined to you by the bond of the strongest love and parted from its overseers neither by prison nor by mines. To whose number not even virgins are lacking, to whom, added to the sixtyfold fruit, the hundredfold has come, and whom a twofold glory has advanced to the heavenly crown.
In boys, too, a courage greater than their age surpassed their years by the praise of confession, so that both every sex and every age might adorn the blessed flock of your martyrdom. And now, most beloved brethren, what vigor of a victorious conscience is yours, what loftiness of soul, what exultation of mind, what triumph within the breast, that each one of you stands awaiting the promised reward of God, is secure concerning the day of judgment, walks in the mine with body indeed captive but heart reigning, and knows that Christ is present with him, rejoicing in the endurance of his servants who tread through his footsteps and his ways toward the eternal kingdoms!
Joyfully you await each day the saving day of your departure, and now at this very moment, about to withdraw from the world, you hasten to the rewards of the martyrs and to the divine dwellings, destined, after these darknesses of the world, to behold the brightest light and to receive a glory greater than all sufferings and conflicts, the Apostle bearing witness and saying: The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.
Plainly, because now your word in prayer is more effectual and your supplication more readily heard for obtaining what is sought amid afflictions, pray the more earnestly and entreat that the divine condescension may bring to completion the confession of us all; that out of these darknesses and snares of the world God may set us too, together with you, whole and glorious; that we who here, joined by the bond of love and peace, have stood together against the wrongs of heretics and the persecutions of the heathen, may together rejoice in the kingdoms of heaven. I pray, most blessed and valiant brethren, that you fare well in the Lord and remember us always and everywhere. Farewell. TO BROTHER CYPRIAN, NEMESIANUS, DATIVUS, FELIX, AND VICTOR send eternal greeting in the Lord.
You have always spoken in your letters with great thoughts befitting the condition of the times, most beloved Cyprian. By the constant reading of them both the perverse are corrected and men of good faith are strengthened. For while you do not cease in your treatises to lay bare the hidden mysteries, you thus make us grow in faith and cause men of the world to draw near to belief. For whatever good things you have set forth in your many books, all unknowing you have portrayed your very self to us. For you are, among all men, greater in discourse, more eloquent in speech, wiser in counsel, simpler in wisdom, more bountiful in works, holier in abstinence, humbler in service, and more blameless in good deeds.
You yourself also know, dearest one, that it is our cherished wish that we may see you, our teacher and our friend, attain to the crown of a great confession. For, like a good and true teacher, you first before the acts of the proconsul declared what we your disciples ought to say before the governor, following you; and sounding the trumpet you roused God's soldiers, equipped with heavenly arms, to the battle of the encounter, and in the front line you slew the devil with the spiritual sword; the ranks of the brethren too you marshalled on this side and that with your words, so that snares might be set on every side for the enemy, and the corpses of that public foe himself and his severed sinews might be trampled underfoot.
Believe us, dearest one, that your innocent soul is not less than the hundredfold reward—a soul which neither feared the world's first onslaughts, nor refused to go into exile, nor hesitated to leave the city, nor shrank from sojourning in a desert place; and since it gave to many a proof of confession, it itself led the way to martyrdom. For how many did it provoke by its example to undertake martyrdom! And it has begun to be associated not only with the martyrs already departing from the world, but has also joined a heavenly friendship with those yet to come.
We the condemned therefore, together with you, render very great thanks to God, dearest Cyprian, because by your letters you have refreshed our toiling breasts, healed our limbs wounded by cudgels, loosed our feet bound with fetters, made even again the hair of our half-shorn heads, lit up the darkness of the prison, brought down the mountains of the mine to level ground, set fragrant flowers even at our nostrils, and dispersed the foul stench of the smoke. Your ministry, and that of our most beloved Quirinus, has also been performed and carried out, which you sent to be distributed by the subdeacon Herennianus and the acolytes Lucanus, Maximus, and Amantius, so that whatever was lacking for the needs of our bodies might be supplied.
Let us therefore be mutual helpers to one another in our prayers, and let us entreat, as you have charged, that we may have God and Christ and the angels as our favorers in all our deeds. We wish that you, lord and brother, may always fare well and remember us. Greet all who are with you. All our company who are with us love and greet you and long to see you. TO BROTHER AND COLLEAGUE CYPRIAN, LUCIUS AND ALL THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH HIM send greeting in God. While we were exulting and rejoicing in God, because he had both armed us for the encounter and by his condescension made us victors in the battle, your letters arrived, dearest brother, which you sent to us by the subdeacon Herennianus and the acolytes Lucanus, Maximus, and Amantius:
On reading them we received in our chains relief, in our affliction consolation, and in our distress protection, and we were roused and more stoutly emboldened, even if anything more of punishments should befall. For before our suffering we were summoned by you to glory, you who first afforded us leadership to the confession of the name of Christ. But we, following the footsteps of your confession, hope for a like grace with you. For he who is first in the race is first also at the prize; and you who first took possession have shared with us from what you took, showing clearly that undivided love wherewith you have always loved us: that those who had one spirit might also, in the union of peace, have by your prayers' grace one crown of confession.
Moreover there has accrued to you, dearest brother, in addition to the crown of confession, the recompense of your works—an abundant measure which you shall receive from the Lord in the day of reward—you who have also represented yourself to us by your letters, so that you might reveal that bright and blessed breast of yours which we have always known, and according to its breadth might speak with us the praises of God, not so much as we deserve to hear as much as you are able to speak. For by your utterances you have both adorned the things that were less instructed in us and have confirmed us for the endurance of those same sufferings which we endure, secure concerning the heavenly reward and the crown of martyrdom and the kingdom of God, according to the prophecy which, full of the Holy Spirit, you pledged in your letters.
All this shall come to pass, most beloved, if you keep us in mind in your prayers, which I am confident you do, even as we certainly do. And so, most longed-for brother, we have received that which you sent from Quirinus and from yourself, a sacrifice out of every clean work. Just as Noah also offered to God, and God was delighted with it as an odor of sweetness and looked upon his sacrifice, so too he looks upon yours and is pleased to render to you the reward of so good a work. But I ask that you give orders for the letters which we have written to Quirinus to be forwarded. I pray that you, dearest and most longed-for brother, may always fare well and remember us. Greet all who are with you. Farewell.
TO CYPRIAN, MOST DEAR AND BELOVED, FELIX, IADER, POLIANUS, TOGETHER WITH THE PRESBYTERS AND ALL WHO DWELL WITH US AT THE MINE OF SIGUS, eternal greeting in God. We greet you in return, dearest brother, by the subdeacon Herennianus and the brothers Lucanus and Maximus, our brethren strong and unharmed by the aid of your prayers; from whom we received, under the name of an offering, a sum together with your letters which you sent, in which you have deigned to comfort us as your sons with heavenly words.
And to God the Father almighty through his Christ we have given and do give thanks, that we have thus been comforted and strengthened by your address, asking, out of the sincerity of your heart, that you would deign to keep us in mind in your constant prayers, that he may complete your confession and ours which the Lord has deigned to confer upon us. Greet all who dwell with you. We wish that you, dearest brother, may fare well in the Lord. (I, Felix, have written it.) I, Iader, have subscribed. I, Polianus, have read it. I greet my lord Eutychianus. CYPRIAN to BROTHER SUCCESSUS, greeting.
That I did not write to you immediately, dearest brother, was caused by this circumstance, that all the clergy, being set under the stroke of the conflict, were utterly unable to depart from here, all of them being ready, according to the devotion of their soul, for the divine and heavenly glory. But know that those have come whom I had sent to the City for this purpose, that in whatever way it should be written back concerning us, they might bring to us the ascertained truth. For many things, varied and uncertain, are bandied about in rumors.
But the things that are in truth stand thus: that Valerian has written back to the senate, that bishops and presbyters and deacons should be punished immediately; that senators and men of rank and Roman knights should, after the loss of their dignity, also be stripped of their goods, and if, their estates taken away, they should persevere in being Christians, they should be punished with death as well; that matrons, their goods taken away, should be banished into exile; that members of the Caesar's household, whoever had either previously confessed or should now confess, should have their property confiscated and be sent in chains, enrolled, onto the Caesar's estates. The emperor Valerian also appended to his address a copy of the letters which he made to the governors of the provinces concerning us:
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quaslitterascotidiesperamusuenire, stantessecundumfideifirmitatemadpassionistolerantiametexpectantesdeopeetindulgentiaDominiuitaeaeternaecoronam. XistumautemincimiterioanimaduersumsciatisVIII. id. Aug. dieetcumeodiaconesquattuor. sedethuicpersecutionicotidieinsistuntpraefectiinurbe, utsiquisibioblatifuerintanimaduertanturetbonaeorumfiscouindicentur.
Which letters we daily hope will come, standing, according to the firmness of our faith, ready for the endurance of suffering, and awaiting from the help and indulgence of the Lord the crown of eternal life. But know that Xystus was put to death in the cemetery on the eighth day before the Ides of August, and with him four deacons. But also the prefects in the City press daily upon this persecution, so that, if any are presented before them, they may be punished and their goods claimed by the treasury.
These things I ask that through you they be made known also to the rest of our colleagues, so that everywhere by their exhortation the brotherhood may be strengthened and prepared for the spiritual contest; that each one of our number may think not so much of death as of immortality, and, dedicated to the Lord with full faith and all their strength, may rejoice rather than fear in this confession, in which they know that the soldiers of God and of Christ are not slain but crowned. I pray that you, dearest brother, may always fare well in the Lord. CYPRIAN to the PRESBYTERS and DEACONS and the WHOLE PEOPLE, greeting.
When it had been reported to us, dearest brethren, that commissioners had been sent to bring me to Utica, and when by the counsel of those most dear to me I had been persuaded that I should withdraw for a time from our gardens, for a just intervening reason I consented, on this ground: that it is fitting that a bishop, in that city in which he presides over the Lord's church, should there confess the Lord, and should glorify the whole people by the confession of their overseer in his presence. For whatever a confessing bishop speaks in the very moment of confession, he speaks by inspiration of God with the mouth of all.
But otherwise the honor of our so glorious a church would be mutilated, if I, a bishop set as overseer over another church, having received sentence concerning my confession at Utica, should thence depart as a martyr to the Lord; since I, both for myself and for you, ought, in your midst, to confess, and there to suffer, and thence to depart to the Lord—as I entreat with continual prayers and desire with all my vows and ought to do. We await, therefore, here, set in a hidden retreat, the arrival of the proconsul returning to Carthage, ready to hear from him what the emperors have commanded concerning the name of Christian laymen and bishops, and to say what the Lord shall wish to be said at that hour.
But you, dearest brethren, according to the discipline which you have always received from me out of the Lord's commands, and according to what you have very often learned from my teaching, keep quiet and tranquillity, and let none of you stir up any tumult among the brethren or offer himself unbidden to the heathen. For he who has been apprehended and delivered up ought to speak, since God who is set within us speaks in that hour, who has willed that we should confess rather than profess. But as to what further it befits us to observe before the proconsul passes sentence upon me concerning the confession of the name of God, we shall arrange close at hand, the Lord instructing us. May the Lord Jesus keep you safe, dearest brethren, abiding in his church, and deign to preserve you.