we now not only do not utterly dread the enemies of the truth, but even challenge them; and the enemies of God we have, by this very fact that we have not yielded, already overcome; and the nefarious laws against the truth we have subdued. And though we have not yet shed our blood, we are nonetheless ready to shed it; let no one judge this delay of ours to be clemency—a delay that stands in our way, that makes a hindrance to glory, that defers heaven, that holds back the glorious sight of God. For in a contest of this kind, and in a battle of this kind where faith strives, it is true clemency for the martyrs not to have put off the delay.
Pray therefore, dearest Cyprian, that the Lord may by his grace more and more, day by day, more richly and more bountifully both arm us and enlighten us, may strengthen and fortify us with the might of his power, so that as the best of commanders he may now lead forth to the field of the appointed contest his soldiers, whom up to now he has trained and tested in the camp of the prison. May he reach out to us the divine arms—those weapons that know not how to be conquered: the breastplate of righteousness that is never wont to be broken, the shield of faith that cannot be pierced, [the helmet of salvation that cannot be shattered, and] the sword of the Spirit that is not accustomed to be wounded. For to whom ought we rather to entrust this petition on our behalf than to so glorious a bishop—that we who are destined to be victims may seek aid from the priest?
Behold yet another of our joys: that in the office of your episcopate, although for a time you were separated from the brethren according to the circumstances of the season, yet you were not wanting; that you frequently strengthened the confessors by your letters; that you also supplied the necessary expenses out of your own just labours; that in all things you somehow ever showed yourself present; that in no part of your office did you halt like some deserter. But that which has more sturdily roused us to greater gladness we cannot pass over in silence, but must follow it up with every testimony of our voice.
For we have observed that with fitting censure you have also worthily rebuked both those who, unmindful of their own sins, had extorted peace from the presbyters during your absence with hasty and headlong greed, and those who, without regard for the Gospel, had with ready facility bestowed the holy thing of the Lord and the pearls—seeing that so great a transgression, which has spread with incredible devastation through almost the whole world, ought not to be handled except, as you yourself write, cautiously and with moderation, when all the bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and likewise the laity who stand fast have been consulted, as you yourself also attest in your letter—lest, while we wish unseasonably to come to the aid of the fallen, we should seem to be preparing other and greater ruins.
For where will the fear of God be left, if pardon is so easily granted to those who sin? Their spirits are indeed to be cherished and nourished until the time of their maturity, and to be instructed from the Scriptures that they have committed a huge sin and one above all others. Nor let them be emboldened because they are many, but rather let them be the more restrained by this very fact, that they are not few. A shameless number has never been wont to avail anything toward the lessening of the offence—but shame avails, and modesty, and penitence, and discipline, and humility and submission, and to have awaited another's judgement upon oneself, and to have endured another's verdict upon one's own deed. This is what proves penitence. This is what draws a scar over the inflicted wound.
This is what raises up and lifts the ruins of a cast-down mind, what extinguishes and ends the burning fever of seething sins. For the physician will not give to the sick those things that belong to healthy bodies, lest unseasonable food, instead of checking the storm of a raging illness, should rather kindle it—lest, namely, that which might have been more quickly healed by a thinning fast should seem, through impatience, to be prolonged by a crudity that is fed too long. The hands defiled by the impious sacrifice must therefore be washed clean with good works, and the wretched mouths polluted with accursed food must be purged with the words of true penitence, and in the secret places of the heart the faithful soul must be made new and planted again.
Let the frequent groans of the penitents be heard, and let faithful tears again be poured from their eyes, so that those very eyes, which wickedly gazed upon the idols, may, by tears that make satisfaction to God, wipe away the unlawful things they had committed. Patience is by no means unnecessary in sicknesses. They who languish wrestle with their own pain, and only thus do they hope for health, if by endurance they overcome the pain. For a faithless scar, which a hurrying physician has drawn over too quickly, is torn open again at any chance, if the remedies are not faithfully applied through that very slowness.
The flame is quickly called back again into a blaze, unless the whole matter of the fire is extinguished even down to the last spark; so that men of this sort may rightly know that even by this very delay better counsel is being taken for them, and more trustworthy remedies are being supplied through necessary postponements. For the rest, where will be the meaning of the fact that those who confess Christ are shut up in the squalor of prison, if they are without peril to their faith who have denied him? Where the meaning of being bound in the encircling of chains in the name of God, if they are not without communion who have refused the confession of God? Where the meaning that those held in custody lay down their glorious souls, if they who have forsaken the faith do not feel the magnitude of their perils and of their offences?
But if they display excessive impatience and demand intolerable haste in communion, in vain do they fling out those querulous and spiteful taunts—which avail nothing against the truth—with petulant and unbridled mouth, since it would have been in their power to retain by their own right that which they are now compelled, by a self-sought necessity, to request. For the faith that was able to confess Christ would have been able also to be retained by Christ in communion. We pray, brother, that you may fare well and be mindful of us. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting.
What sort of letters I have sent to the clergy resident at Rome, and what they have written back to me; also what Moyses and Maximus the presbyters and Nicostratus and Rufinus the deacons and the rest of the confessors placed with them in custody have likewise written back to my letters—that you might be able to know it, dearest brethren, I have transmitted to you copies for your reading. Take care, as far as you can according to your diligence, that both our writings and their replies become known to our brethren. And if any of the foreign bishops, my colleagues, or presbyters or deacons should be present or should arrive, let them hear all these things from you.
And if they wish to transcribe copies of the letters and carry them back to their own people, let them receive the opportunity of transcribing—though I have also charged Satyrus, our brother the reader, to grant to each one who desires it the power of copying—so that, in the state of the churches being meanwhile somehow set in order, one faithful agreement may be preserved by all. But concerning the other matters which will have to be dealt with, as I have written also to very many of my colleagues, we shall treat more fully by common counsel, when, with the Lord's permission, we shall have begun to come together into one. I pray that you, dearest and most longed-for brethren, may ever fare well. Salute the brotherhood. Farewell.
Our Lord, whose precepts we ought to fear and to keep, in arranging the honour of the bishop and the order of his Church, speaks in the Gospel and says to Peter: 'I say to thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and to thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven.' Thence, through the changes of times and successions, the ordination of bishops and the order of the Church runs on, so that the Church is established upon the bishops, and every act of the Church is governed through these same prelates.
Since this has been so founded by divine law, I marvel that certain men have wished, with audacious rashness, to write to me in such a way as to address letters in the name of the Church, when the Church is established in the bishop and the clergy and in all who stand fast. For God forbid—nor let the Lord's mercy and his unconquered power suffer it—that the number of the lapsed should be called the Church, since it is written: 'God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' We indeed desire that all be made alive, and we pray with our prayers and groans that they be restored to their former state. But if certain of the lapsed wish to be the Church, and if the Church is with them and in them, what remains but that we ourselves should ask of them that they deign to admit us to the Church?
Those, therefore, who, mindful of their sin, owe satisfaction to God ought to be submissive and quiet and modest, and not to write letters in the name of the Church, when they should rather know that they are writing to the Church. Now certain of the lapsed have written to me—humble and meek and trembling and fearing God, men who in the churches have always laboured gloriously and greatly, and who never imputed their work to the Lord, knowing that he said: 'And when you have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.'
Pondering these things, and although having received a certificate from the martyrs, yet—that satisfaction itself might be admitted before the Lord—praying, they wrote to me that they acknowledge their sin and are doing true penance, and that they are not rashly or unseasonably hastening to peace, but are awaiting our presence, saying that even peace itself, if they should receive it in our presence, would be the sweeter to them. How greatly I congratulated them, the Lord is witness, who has deigned to show what such servants of this kind deserve of his goodness.
Since I have received these letters, and now read that you have written something else, I ask that you distinguish your wishes, and that whoever you are who have now sent these letters should append your names to a list, and transmit to me the list with the names of each. For it is first necessary to know to whom I am to write back. Then I shall reply to the several points which you have written, according to the modesty of our position and office. I pray, brethren, that you may fare well and conduct yourselves quietly and tranquilly according to the Lord's discipline. Farewell. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting.
You have acted uprightly and with discipline, dearest brethren, in that, by the counsel of my colleagues who were present, you judged that there should be no communion with Gaius the presbyter of Dida and his deacon, who, by communicating with the lapsed and by offering their oblations, were frequently caught in their depraved errors, and—once and again, according to what you wrote to me, having been admonished by my colleagues not to do this—obstinately persisted in their presumption and audacity, deceiving certain brethren from our people, for whom we desire to take counsel for their every advantage, and whose salvation we look after not with corrupting flattery but with sincere faith, that by true penance and with full groaning and grief they may entreat God, since it is written:
'Remember whence thou hast fallen, and do penance'; and again the divine Scripture speaks: 'Thus says the Lord: When thou art converted and shalt groan, then shalt thou be saved, and shalt know where thou hast been.' But how can those groan and do penance for whose groans and tears certain of the presbyters intercede, so that they rashly suppose communion ought to be granted them—not knowing that it is written: 'They who call you blessed, lead you into error and trouble the path of your feet'?
Deservedly do our wholesome and true counsels make no headway, while saving truth is hindered by flatteries and by pernicious soothing; and the wounded and sick mind of the lapsed suffers what those who are bodily sick and infirm also often suffer—that, while they reject wholesome foods and useful drinks as bitter and repugnant, and crave those things which seem delightful and for the moment pleasant, they provoke for themselves destruction and death through disobedience and intemperance, and the physician's true remedy avails nothing toward health, while the sweet enticement of the flatterer deceives them. Do you therefore, who faithfully and wholesomely take counsel according to my letters, not depart from the better counsels.
Read indeed these same letters also to my colleagues, if any should be present or should arrive, that with one mind and in concord we may hold a wholesome counsel for cherishing and healing the wounds of the lapsed—intending to treat most fully of all things when, through the Lord's mercy, we shall have begun to come together into one. Meanwhile, if anyone immoderate and headlong, whether of our presbyters or deacons, or of the foreigners, shall have dared to communicate with the lapsed before our sentence, let him be barred from our communion, to plead the cause of his rashness before us all when, with the Lord's permission, we shall have come together into one.
You have also desired that I write back what seems good to me concerning Philumenus and Fortunatus the subdeacons and Favorinus the acolyte, who withdrew in the meantime and have now returned. On this matter I do not think that I alone ought to give sentence, since many of the clergy are as yet absent and have not thought their own place should be sought again, even late; and this examination of individuals must be handled and refined more fully, not only with my colleagues, but with the whole laity itself. For the matter must be weighed and pronounced upon with carefully measured moderation, since it will establish a precedent for the future regarding the ministers of the Church.
Meanwhile let them only abstain from the division of the monthly share, not as though they should seem to be deprived of the ecclesiastical ministry, but so that, with everything kept intact, they may be deferred until our presence. I pray, dearest brethren, that you may ever fare well. Salute the whole brotherhood. Farewell. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons resident at Rome, his brethren, greeting. Both common love and reason demand, dearest brethren, that we withhold nothing from your conscience concerning the things which are done among us, so that we may have a common counsel regarding the welfare of the ecclesiastical administration.
For after I sent you the letter which I dispatched through Saturus the reader and Optatus the subdeacon, our brethren, the conspired rashness of certain of the lapsed—who refuse to do penance and to make satisfaction to God—made letters to me, demanding peace not as a thing to be granted them but as though already granted, asserting it; for they say that Paul gave peace to all, as in their letter, a copy of which I have transmitted to you. You will read it, together with what I briefly wrote back to them in the meantime, and also what kind of letters I afterward made to the clergy, that you might be able to know. Of this matter also I have sent you a copy. But if their rashness shall not be checked, either by my letters or by yours, nor shall obey wholesome counsels,
we shall do those things which, according to the Gospel, the Lord has commanded to be done. I pray, dearest brethren, that you may ever fare well. Farewell. To Cyprian the pope, from the presbyters and deacons resident at Rome, greeting. When we had read through your letter, brother, which you had sent through Fortunatus the subdeacon, we were stricken with a twofold grief and confounded with a double sorrow: that no rest was being granted to you amid such great necessities of persecution, and that the immoderate petulance of the lapsed brethren was being marked as carried even to a perilous rashness of words.
But although these things which we have mentioned grievously afflicted us and our spirit, nevertheless your vigour and the severity applied according to evangelical discipline tempers so heavy a burden of our grief, while you both justly restrain the wickedness of certain men and, by exhorting them to penance, show the way of lawful salvation. We have indeed marvelled greatly that they should have wished to leap so far forward as to demand—nay rather to claim as their right—peace for themselves so urgently, and at so unripe and bitter a time, amid so vast and immense a crime and offence; nay, that they should even say they already have it in heaven. But if they have it, what do they seek that they already hold?
But if it is proved that they do not have it by this very fact that they seek it, why do they not submit to the judgement of those from whom they thought peace was to be sought—peace which assuredly they do not have? But if they believe that they have the prerogative of communion from some other source, when they attempt to confer it with the Gospel, it will thus at last avail firmly, if it is not discordant with the evangelical law. For the rest, by what means will that be able to grant evangelical communion which is seen to be a decree against evangelical truth? For since every prerogative thus at last looks to the privilege of indulgence, if it does not disagree with that to which it seeks to be allied, then—because it disagrees with that to which it seeks to be allied—it must of necessity lose the indulgence and the privilege of association.
Let them therefore consider what they are attempting to do in this business. For if the Gospel says one thing, but the martyrs are said to have laid down another decree, the martyrs, clashing against the Gospel, will be imperilled on both sides. For the majesty of the Gospel will be seen to be already broken and laid low, if it could be overcome by the novelty of another decree; and from the head of the martyrs the glorious crown of confession will be torn away, if they are not found to have attained it from the keeping of the Gospel, whence martyrs are made—so that deservedly it befits no one more to decree nothing against the Gospel than him who labours to receive the name of martyr from the Gospel. This furthermore we should like to learn:
if the martyrs become martyrs for no other reason than that, not sacrificing, they may keep peace for the Church even to the shedding of their own blood, lest, overcome by the pain of torture, they should by losing peace lose salvation—by what means do they think salvation, which they did not suppose they would have had if they had sacrificed, ought to be granted to those who are said to have sacrificed, when they ought to hold this same law in regard to others which they themselves seemed to have laid down for themselves beforehand? In which business we observe that this very thing which they thought they were doing on their own behalf they have brought forward against themselves. For if the martyrs thought peace should be granted to them, why did they not themselves grant it? Why did they judge that they should be sent back to the bishop, as they themselves say? For he who commands a thing to be done can surely himself do that which he commands to be done.
But as we understand—nay, as the matter itself speaks and cries out—the most holy martyrs judged that on both sides a temperance both of modesty and of truth should be applied. For because they were pressed by many, in sending them back to the bishop they thought regard should be had for their own modesty, lest they should be further disquieted; and while they themselves do not communicate with them, they judged that the unimpaired sincerity of the evangelical law should be preserved. You, however, brother, never for your love's sake cease to temper the minds of the lapsed and to furnish to the erring the medicine of truth, although a sick mind is wont to spurn the diligence of those who heal. The wound of the lapsed is recent and lately inflicted, and the blow is still rising into a swelling.
And therefore we are certain that, the space of a more prolonged time having let this impulse grow old, they will love this very thing—that they have been put off to a faithful medicine—provided, however, that there be lacking those who arm them to their own peril and, instructing them perversely, demand for them, in place of the wholesome remedies of delay, the deadly poisons of a hastened communion. For neither do we believe that all would have dared so petulantly to claim peace for themselves already, without the instigation of certain men. We know the faith of the Carthaginian church, we know its discipline, we know its humility.
Whence also we have marvelled that we should mark somewhat too harshly certain things cast in among you by letter, since we have often found your mutual love and charity toward one another by many examples of reciprocal affection.
It is time, therefore, that they do penance for their offense, that they prove the sorrow for their fall, that they show modesty, that they display humility, that they exhibit restraint, so that by their submission they may call forth upon themselves the clemency of God, and by the honor owed to God's priest may draw down upon themselves the divine mercy; for their letters would have been the more acceptable if for them the prayers of those who stand had been aided by their own humility, since that which is asked is also more easily obtained when he for whom it is asked is worthy that what is requested be granted. But as for what concerns Privatus of Lambaesis, you have acted according to your custom, in that you wished to report the matter to us as one of concern.
For it befits us all to keep watch on behalf of the body of the whole Church, whose members are spread throughout the several provinces. But even before your letter, the fraud of that crafty man could not lie hidden from us. For when, some time ago, a certain standard-bearer of Privatus named Futurus, one of the band of his wickedness, had come and was taking pains fraudulently to elicit letters from us, neither did it escape us who he was, nor did he receive the letters he wanted. We wish you ever to fare well. CYPRIAN TO THE PRESBYTERS MOYSES AND MAXIMUS AND TO THE REST OF THE CONFESSORS, HIS BRETHREN, GREETING. Celerinus on his arrival has brought you all, both together and each one, before our affections, dearest brethren — a companion of your faith and virtue, and in his glorious encounters a soldier of God.
In him as he came we beheld you all, and when he spoke sweetly and often of your love toward me, in his words we were hearing you. I rejoice greatly and exceedingly when such tidings are brought to me by you through such men. With you there in prison we too in a certain manner are present; we believe that we share with you the ornaments of the divine favor, we who cling so closely to your hearts. Your undivided love binds us to your honor, and the spirit does not allow our affection to be separated. Confession encloses you there, affection encloses me.
And we indeed are mindful of you day and night; both when in the sacrifices we make our prayer together with many, and when in retirement we pray with private prayers, we beseech of the Lord's favor a full measure for your crowns and praises. But to render you a return, our littleness is too small. You give more when you remember us in your prayer, you who, already hoping only for heavenly things and meditating only on what is divine, ascend to loftier heights by the very delay of your passion, and by the long span of time do not diminish your glories but increase them. A first and single confession makes one blessed; you confess as often as, when asked to depart from prison, you choose prison before by faith and virtue.
As many as are your days, so many are your praises; as many as are the courses of the months, so many are the increases of your merits. He conquers but once who suffers at once; but he who, remaining ever amid punishments, contends with pain and is not overcome, is daily crowned. Let magistrates now go forth, and consuls or proconsuls, and let them glory in the insignia of their yearly dignity and in their twelve fasces. Behold, a heavenly dignity has been sealed in you by the splendor of an honor that is yearly, and it has already surpassed the rolling circle of the returning year by the long duration of victorious glory. The rising sun and the running moon used to give light to the world:
but to you that same One who made the sun and the moon was a greater light in prison, and the brightness of Christ shining in your heart and minds has irradiated with that eternal and white light the horrors and the deadly darkness of the place of punishment, dreadful to others. Through the changes of the months the winter has passed; but you, shut in, weigh the seasons of winter by the winter of persecution. To winter has succeeded the springtime of mildness, glad with roses and crowned with flowers; but to you roses and flowers from the delights of paradise were at hand, and heavenly garlands crowned your head. Behold, summer is fruitful with the abundance of harvests, and the threshing-floor is full of grain;
but you who have sown glory reap the harvest of glory, and set in the Lord's threshing-floor you watch the chaff be burned with unquenchable fire, while you yourselves, like purged grains of wheat and precious corn, already approved and stored, reckon the lodging of the prison as a granary. Nor in autumn is there lacking to you the spiritual grace of the season for fulfilling its duties. Outside, the vintage is pressed, and the grape to profit the cups is trodden in the winepresses; you, rich clusters from the Lord's vineyard, grapes with fruit already ripe, trodden by the assault of worldly pressure, feel the winepress while the prison wrings you out; in place of wine you pour forth blood, and strong for the endurance of passion you gladly drain the cup of martyrdom. So among the servants of God the year rolls on.
Thus by spiritual merits and heavenly rewards is the round of the seasons kept. Blessed indeed are those of you who, passing through these footprints of glories, have already departed from the world, and, the journey of virtue and faith being accomplished, have come to the embrace and kiss of the Lord, with the Lord Himself rejoicing. But not less is your glory also, who, still set in the contest and about to follow the glories of your companions, wage the fight long, and steadfast with unmoved and unshaken faith, daily exhibit to God a spectacle by your virtues. The longer your fight, the loftier the crown: a single combat, yet heaped up by the manifold multitude of battles. You conquer hunger and scorn thirst, and by the strength of your vigor you trample down the squalor of the prison and the horror of the place of punishment.
There punishment is subdued, torment is worn down, and death is not feared but desired, since it is overcome by the reward of immortality, so that he who has conquered is honored with the eternity of life. What a spirit is now in you, how lofty, how capacious a breast, where such and so great things are revolved, where nothing is thought of but the precepts of God and the rewards of Christ! There only the will of God prevails, and though you are still placed in the flesh, the life now lived by you is not that of the present age but of the age to come.
Now it is, most blessed brethren, that you should be mindful of me, that amid your great and divine reflections you should turn us over also in soul and mind, so that I may be in your prayers and supplications, when that voice, illustrious by the purification of confession and praiseworthy by the unbroken tenor of its honor, penetrates to the ears of God, and, heaven being opened to it, sent from these regions of the conquered world to the heights above, obtains from the goodness of the Lord what it asks. For what do you ask of the indulgence of the Lord that you should not deserve to obtain?