You who have so kept the commands of the Lord, who have held the evangelical discipline with the sincere vigor of faith, who, standing bravely with the uncorrupted honor of virtue together with the precepts of the Lord and with His apostles, have by the truth of your martyrdom made firm the wavering faith of many. Truly witnesses of the Gospel and truly martyrs of Christ, resting upon His roots, founded with a sturdy mass upon the Rock, you have joined discipline with virtue, you have provoked the rest to the fear of God, you have made your martyrdoms into examples. I wish you, most brave and most blessed brethren, ever to fare well and to be mindful of us. CYPRIAN TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS, AND LIKEWISE TO THE WHOLE PEOPLE, GREETING.
In the ordinations of clerics, dearest brethren, it is our custom to consult you beforehand and to weigh by common counsel the character and merits of each one. But human testimonies are not to be awaited when the divine suffrages have gone before. Aurelius, our brother, an illustrious young man, already approved by the Lord and dear to God, still youthful in years, but advanced in the praise of virtue and of faith, lesser in the disposition of his age, but greater in honor: this man contended in a twofold combat, twice confessing and twice glorious in the victory of his confession; and when he conquered in the contest he was made an exile, and when he fought again in a still braver struggle he proved himself a triumphant victor in the battle of passion.
As often as the adversary wished to provoke the servants of God, so often did this most ready and most brave soldier both fight and conquer. It had been too little to have engaged before the eyes of a few, when he was being made an exile: he earned to engage also in the forum with a more brilliant valor, so that after magistrates and proconsul he might conquer, and after exile overcome the torments.
Nor do I find what I ought more to extol in him, the glory of his wounds or the modesty of his ways, whether he is distinguished by the honor of virtue or praiseworthy by the admiration of his chastity; so both is he exalted in dignity and lowly in humility, that he appears to have been reserved by God to be an example to the rest for ecclesiastical discipline, how the servants of God should conquer in confession by their virtues and should excel in their ways after confession. Such a man deserved the further grades of clerical ordination and greater advancements, to be esteemed not by his years but by his merits.
But for the present it has seemed good that he should begin from the office of reading, because nothing more befits the voice which has confessed God by a glorious proclamation than to resound in the celebration of the divine readings; after the sublime words which uttered the martyrdom of Christ, to read the Gospel of Christ whence martyrs are made; to come to the pulpit after the rack; there to have been conspicuous to the multitude of the heathen, here to be beheld by the brethren; there to have been heard with the wonder of the surrounding people, here to be heard with the joy of the brotherhood. Know, therefore, dearest brethren, that this man has been ordained by me and by my colleagues who were present. I know that you both gladly embrace this and desire that as many such as possible be ordained in our church.
And since joy always hastens and gladness cannot bear delay, he read for us in the meantime on the Lord's day — that is, he inaugurated peace, while he dedicates his reading. Do you press on frequently in prayers and aid our prayers by your own, that the mercy of the Lord, favoring us, may quickly restore both the priest unharmed to His people and, with the priest, the reader who is a martyr. I wish you, dearest brethren, in God the Father and in Christ Jesus, ever to fare well. CYPRIAN TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE, HIS BRETHREN, GREETING.
The divine benefits, dearest brethren, by which the Lord has deigned to illuminate and to honor His Church in our times, are to be acknowledged and embraced, in that He grants reinforcement to His good confessors and glorious martyrs, so that those who had sublimely confessed Christ might afterward adorn the clergy by the ecclesiastical ministries of Christ. Exult therefore and rejoice with us when our letters are read, by which I and my colleagues who were present report to you that Celerinus, our brother, glorious alike in his virtues and his ways, has been joined to our clergy not by human suffrage but by divine favor.
When he hesitated to consent, he was, by the admonition and exhortation of the Church itself, compelled in a vision by night not to refuse — we urging him, to whom more was permitted and who even constrained him, because it was neither right nor fitting that one whom the Lord had so honored with the dignity of heavenly glory should be without ecclesiastical honor. This man was the first in the battle of our time, the standard-bearer among the soldiers of Christ; he, amid the fervent beginnings of the persecution, engaged with the very prince and author of the assault, and while by the unconquerable firmness of his contest he conquers the adversary, he made a way of conquering for the rest, a victor not by a brief reckoning of wounds, but a triumpher by the marvel of a long struggle, with sufferings clinging and abiding long.
For nineteen days he was shut up in the custody of the prison, in the stocks and in irons. But though his body was placed in chains, his spirit remained loosed and free. His flesh wasted away by the long continuance of hunger and thirst, but his soul, living by faith and virtue, God fed with spiritual nourishments. He lay amid punishments, stronger than his own punishments; shut in, greater than those who shut him in; lying down, loftier than those who stood; bound, firmer than those who bound him; judged, more sublime than those who judged him; and although his feet were bound in the stocks, the helmeted serpent was both crushed and conquered. In his glorious body the bright marks of his wounds shine forth; in the man's sinews and limbs, consumed by long wasting, the imprinted traces stand out and appear.
Great are they, marvelous are they, the things which the brotherhood may hear concerning his virtues and his praises. And if anyone should arise like Thomas, who believes his ears too little, neither is the testimony of the eyes lacking, so that one may also see what he hears. In the servant of God the glory of his wounds wrought the victory, and the memory of his scars guards the glory. Nor is this title of glories raw or new in our most beloved Celerinus. He walks in the footsteps of his kindred; with his parents and his kinsfolk he is matched in like honor of the divine favor. His grandmother Celerina was long since crowned with martyrdom.
Likewise his paternal uncle and his maternal uncle, Laurentinus and Egnatius, themselves also once soldiers in the worldly camps, but true and spiritual soldiers of God, while they laid the devil low by the confession of Christ, earned the palms and crowns of the Lord by an illustrious passion. We offer sacrifices for them — always, as you remember — as often as we celebrate the passions of the martyrs and the anniversary days with commemoration. Therefore he could be neither degenerate nor inferior whom the dignity of his family and his noble birth thus provoked by the domestic examples of virtue and faith. But if in a worldly family it is a matter of proclamation and praise to be of patrician rank, how much greater praise and honor it is to become noble in the heavenly proclamation.
I do not find which I should rather call the more blessed, whether those, for so illustrious a posterity, or this man, for so glorious an origin. So equally does the divine favor recur and pass to and fro among them, that both the dignity of the offspring illuminates the crown of those forebears, and the sublimity of his lineage illuminates this man's glory. Such a one coming to us, dearest brethren, with so great a favor of the Lord, made illustrious by the testimony and the marvel of that very man who had persecuted him — what else was fitting than that he should be placed upon the pulpit, that is, upon the tribunal of the church, so that, supported by the height of a loftier place and conspicuous to all the people for the splendor of his honor, he should read the precepts and the Gospel of the Lord, which he so bravely and so faithfully follows?
Let the voice that confessed the Lord be heard daily in those things which the Lord has spoken. Let it be seen whether there is a further grade to which he may advance in the church. There is nothing in which a confessor may more profit the brethren than that, while the evangelical reading is heard from his mouth, each one who has heard him may imitate the reader's faith. He had to be joined in the reading to Aurelius, with whom he has also been united in the fellowship of divine honor, with whom he has been coupled in all the marks of virtue and praise.
Both are equal and each alike: as much as they are sublime in glory, so much are they humble in modesty; as much as they are advanced by divine favor, so much are they lowly by their own calmness and tranquility; and equally affording examples both of virtues and of ways to each individual, suited both to the combat and to peace, praiseworthy there by their strength, here by their modesty. In such servants the Lord rejoices, in confessors of this kind He glories, whose conduct and manner of life so profit toward the heralding of glory that they afford to the rest a teaching of discipline.
For this Christ willed them to be here in the church for a long time; for this He reserved them unharmed, withdrawn from the midst of death by what I would call a resurrection wrought concerning them, so that, while nothing more sublime in honor and nothing more lowly in humility is discerned by the brethren, the brotherhood, following these same men, might accompany them. Yet know that these have for the present been appointed readers, because it was fitting that a lamp be set upon a lampstand, whence it may give light to all, and that glorious countenances be set in a higher place, where, beheld by all who stand around, they may afford an incitement to glory to those who see.
For the rest, know that we have already designated for them the honor of the presbyterate, so that they may both be honored with the same allowances as the presbyters and share the monthly distributions in equal portions, destined to sit with us when their years are advanced and strengthened — although in nothing can he seem the lesser in the disposition of age who has consummated his age by the dignity of glory. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brethren, ever to fare well. CYPRIAN TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE, HIS DEAREST AND MOST LONGED-FOR BRETHREN, GREETING. It had to be announced to you, dearest brethren, something that pertains both to the common joy and to the greatest glory of our church.
For know that we have been admonished and instructed by the divine favor that Numidicus the presbyter should be enrolled in the number of the Carthaginian presbyters and should sit with us among the clergy, illustrious by the most brilliant light of his confession and sublime in the honor of virtue and faith: he who by his exhortation sent on before him a glorious number of martyrs slain by stones and flames, and who looked with joy upon his wife, clinging to his side, burned by fire together with the rest — or rather, as I would say, preserved. He himself, half-burned and overwhelmed with stones and left for dead, when afterward his daughter, with the anxious devotion of piety, sought out the body of her father, was found half-alive and was drawn out and revived, and remained behind against his will among the companions whom he himself had sent on before.
But the cause of his remaining, as we see, was this: that the Lord might join him to our clergy and adorn with glorious priests the company left desolate by the fall of certain of our presbyters. And he will indeed be promoted, when God shall permit, to a more ample place of his religious calling, when we shall have come into his presence, the Lord protecting us. Meanwhile, let what is shown be done, that we may receive this gift of God with thanksgiving, hoping from the mercy of the Lord for many ornaments of this kind, so that, with the strength of His Church restored, He may make men so meek and humble flourish in the honor of our assembly. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brethren, ever to fare well.
I have been vehemently grieved, dearest brethren, on receiving your letter, since, whereas it is always my purpose and my wish to keep our whole brotherhood unharmed and to preserve the flock unblemished, as charity demands, you now report that Felicissimus has contrived many things wickedly and treacherously: so that, besides his frauds and rapines, of which I had long since learned much, he has now also attempted to dash the portion of the people against the bishop — that is, to separate the sheep from the shepherd and to sever the sons from the parent and to scatter the members of Christ; and whereas I had sent you as my deputies in my stead, that you might settle the necessities of our brethren with these funds — if any wished also to ply their own trades, you might aid their desires by such addition as should suffice — and likewise that you might distinguish their ages and their conditions and their merits.
so that even now I, upon whom the care rests, may wish to know all and to promote to the offices of ecclesiastical administration all who are worthy and humble and meek — he interposed, that none who could be settled might be, nor that those things which I had desired might be discerned by the examination of your diligence; he even threatened our brethren who had first come to be enrolled, with wicked might and violent terror, that those who had wished to obey us should not have communion with him in death.
And since after all this, moved neither by the honor of my office nor broken by your authority and presence, disturbing the quiet of the brethren at his own instigation, he has flung himself out with very many, declaring himself with rash fury the leader of the faction and the chief of the sedition — wherein indeed I rejoice that very many of the brethren have withdrawn from his audacity and have preferred to acquiesce in you, that they might remain with the Church their mother and receive their stipends with the bishop dispensing them, which indeed I know for certain that the rest also will do with peace and will quickly withdraw from their rash error — meanwhile, since Felicissimus has threatened that those who had obeyed us, that is, who held communion with us, should not have communion with him in death, let him receive the sentence which he himself first pronounced, that he may know himself to be cut off from us; since to his frauds and rapines, which we have learned with clear truth, there is added also the crime of adultery, which our brethren, grave men, have reported that they detected and have affirmed that they will prove.
All which things we shall investigate when, the Lord permitting, we shall have come together into one with our many colleagues. But Augendus also, who, thinking neither of the bishop nor of the Church, has allied himself in equal conspiracy with that man, if he persevere any further with the same, let him bear the sentence which that factious and rash man provokes upon himself. And let whoever has joined himself to his conspiracy and faction know that he shall not have communion in the Church with us, he who of his own accord has preferred to separate himself from the Church. Read this my letter to our brethren and transmit it to the clergy at Carthage, with the names added of whosoever shall have joined themselves to Felicissimus. I wish you, dearest brethren, ever to fare well.
CALDONIUS, WITH HERCULANUS AND VICTOR, HIS COLLEAGUES, AND LIKEWISE WITH ROGATIANUS AND NUMIDICUS, THE PRESBYTERS. We have withheld communion from Felicissimus and Augendus, likewise from Repostus; from among the exiles, also Irene of the Rutili and Paula the seamstress, as you ought to have known from my note. Likewise we have withheld it from Sophronius, and from him also among the exiles, Soliassus the linen-weaver. CYPRIAN TO THE WHOLE PEOPLE, GREETING.
Although, dearest brethren, Virtius, a most faithful and most upright presbyter, and likewise Rogatianus and Numidicus, presbyters, confessors and illustrious by the glory of the divine favor, and also the deacons, good men and devoted in all their services to the ecclesiastical administration, together with the other ministries afford you the full diligence of their presence, and cease not by constant exhortations to strengthen each one, and also to govern and reform the minds of the lapsed with wholesome counsels — nevertheless I, as much as I can, admonish you, and as I can, visit you with my letters. With letters, I say, dearest brethren.
For this the malice and perfidy of certain presbyters has brought about, that it has not been allowed me to come to you before the day of Pascha, while they, mindful of their conspiracy and retaining those old poisons against my episcopate — nay rather, against your suffrage and the judgment of God — renew their old assault against us, and with their accustomed snares anew renew their sacrilegious machinations. And indeed, by the providence of God, against our will and wish — nay rather, while we even forgive and keep silence — they have paid the penalties they had deserved, so that, not cast out by us, they cast themselves out of their own accord, and themselves gave sentence against themselves according to their conscience, and, conspirators and criminals according to your divine suffrages, expelled themselves of their own will from the Church.
Now it has become apparent whence the faction of Felicissimus had arisen, by what roots and by what forces it stood. These men once supplied fomentations and incitements to certain confessors, that they should not be in concord with their bishop, nor maintain ecclesiastical discipline with faith and quiet according to the Lord's precepts, nor preserve the glory of their confession by an uncorrupted and unspotted conversation.
And lest it should have been too little to have corrupted the minds of certain confessors and to have wished to arm the portion of the broken brotherhood against the priesthood of God, they have now turned their venomous deception also to the destruction of the lapsed, so that they may call away the sick and the wounded, and those who through the calamity of their ruin are less fit and less firm to take stronger counsels, from the healing of their wound, and, the prayers and supplications being interrupted by which the Lord must be appeased with long and continual satisfaction, may invite them to a destructive rashness by the lie of a deceitful peace. But I beseech you, brethren, watch against the snares of the devil, and, solicitous for your salvation, keep watch more diligently against this deadly fallacy.
This is another persecution and another temptation, and these five presbyters are nothing other than those five chief men who lately had been joined by edict to the magistrates, in order to undermine our faith, in order to turn aside the frail hearts of the brethren to deadly snares by the betrayal of the truth.
The same reasoning now, the same overthrow again, is brought in through the five presbyters joined to Felicissimus, unto the ruin of salvation: that God should not be entreated, nor he who has denied Christ beseech that same Christ whom he had denied; that after the guilt of his crime, penitence too should be taken away; that satisfaction should not be made to the Lord through the bishops and priests of the Lord, but that, the Lord's priests being forsaken, against the evangelical discipline a new tradition of sacrilegious institution should arise; and whereas it has once seemed good both to us and to the confessors and to the city clergy, and likewise to all the bishops appointed either in our province or beyond the sea, that nothing should be innovated concerning the cause of the lapsed unless we all come together into one, and, counsels being conferred, fix a sentence tempered alike with discipline and with mercy — against this our counsel rebellion is made, and all priestly authority and power is destroyed by factious conspiracies.
What pains do I now suffer, dearest brethren, because I myself cannot come to you at this present time, cannot myself approach each one of you, cannot myself exhort you according to the teaching of the Lord and of His Gospel! An exile already of two years, and the mournful separation from your faces and from your eyes, did not suffice; the unceasing grief and groaning that tortures me alone, without you, in continual lamentation; the tears that flow by day and by night, because it is not granted to the bishop whom you made with such love and ardour even to greet you, nor yet to cling to you in your embraces. To my wasting soul there has now been added.
a greater grief: that amid such anxiety and necessity I cannot myself hasten to you, while through the threats and the snares of the treacherous we take care lest, upon our arrival there, a greater tumult should arise, and lest a bishop—who in all things ought to provide for peace and tranquillity—should himself seem to have given occasion for sedition and to have inflamed the persecution anew. Hence nevertheless, most beloved brethren, hence I admonish and at the same time counsel you not rashly to believe pernicious voices, not easily to lend your assent to deceitful words, lest you take darkness for light, night for day, hunger for food, thirst for drink, poison for a remedy, death for salvation.
Let not the age of those men deceive you, nor their authority, who, answering to the old wickedness of the two elders—just as those men tried to corrupt and violate the chaste Susanna—so these too try, by adulterous teachings, to corrupt the chastity of the Church and to violate the truth of the Gospel. God cries out and says: 「Do not listen to the words of the false prophets, for the visions of their own heart deceive them. They speak, but not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those who cast away the word of the Lord: Peace shall be unto you.」 They now offer peace who themselves have no peace, nor do they permit the lapsed to be brought back and recalled to the Church—they who have departed from the Church. God is one, and Christ is one, and the Church is one, and the chair, founded by the voice of the Lord upon Peter, is one.
Another altar cannot be set up, nor a new priesthood made, besides the one altar and the one priesthood. Whoever gathers elsewhere scatters. It is adulterous, it is impious, it is sacrilegious—whatever is established by human madness so that the divine ordinance is violated. Withdraw far from contact with men of this kind, and shun their words by fleeing them as a cancer and a plague, for the Lord forewarns and says: 「They are blind leaders of the blind. And a blind man leading a blind man, both shall fall together into the pit.」 They intercede for our prayers, which you pour out to God with us by day and by night, and appease Him by just satisfaction. They intercede with our tears, by which you wash away the guilt of the sin committed.
They intercede for the peace which you truly and faithfully ask for from the Lord's mercy—they who do not know that it is written: 「And that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream, he who has spoken to make you stray from the Lord your God.」 Let no one, brethren, make you stray from the ways of the Lord. Let no one snatch you Christians away from the Gospel of Christ; let no one take away the sons of the Church from the Church. Let those alone perish who have willed to perish; let those alone remain outside the Church who have departed from the Church; let those alone be without the bishops who have rebelled against the bishops; let those alone undergo the penalties of their conspiracy who once, according to your votes, and now, according to the judgements of God, have deserved to undergo the sentence of their conspiracy and malignity.
The Lord warns us in His Gospel, saying: 「You reject the commandment of God in order to establish your own tradition.」 Let those who reject the commandment of God and try to establish their own tradition be firmly and steadfastly rejected by you. Let one ruin suffice for the lapsed. Let no one, by his circumvention, cast headlong those who are willing to rise. Let no one more grievously prostrate and crush those who lie fallen, for whom we beg that they may be raised up by the hand and arm of God. Let no one turn away from all hope of salvation those who are half-alive and pleading to recover their former salvation. Let no one extinguish, for those who waver in the darkness of their fall, all the light of the way of salvation. The apostle instructs us, saying:
「If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to His doctrine, puffed up with conceit, withdraw from such a one.」 And again He Himself says: 「Let no one deceive you with empty words; for on account of these the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Do not, therefore, be partakers with them.」 There is no reason why, deceived by the empty words of their depravity, you should begin to be partakers. Depart from such men, I beseech you, and consent to our counsels—we who daily pour out continual prayers to the Lord for you, who long that you be recalled to the Church through the Lord's clemency, who pray to God for the fullest peace, first for the mother and then for her sons.
Join your prayers and petitions also to our prayers and supplications; couple your tears with our weeping. Avoid the wolves that separate the sheep from the shepherd; avoid the poisoned tongue of the devil, who from the beginning of the world, ever deceitful and lying, lies in order to deceive, flatters in order to harm. He promises good things in order to bestow evil; he promises life in order to destroy. Now too his words shine, and his poisons are manifest: he promises peace, that one may not be able to attain peace; he promises salvation, that he who has sinned may not come to salvation; he pledges the Church, when he is acting so that whoever believes him may perish utterly from the Church.
Now is the time, most beloved brethren, both that you who stand firm should persevere, and should preserve with perpetual steadfastness the glorious stability which you held in persecution; and that you who, with the adversary circumventing you, have lapsed in this second temptation, should faithfully take counsel for your hope and your peace, and—that the Lord may pardon you—should not withdraw from the priests of the Lord, since it is written: 「And whatever man shall act in pride, so as not to hearken to the priest or the judge, whoever he shall be in those days, that man shall die.」 This is the last and final temptation of this persecution, which itself too, with the Lord protecting, will quickly pass, so that I may present myself to you after the day of Easter together with my colleagues;
in whose presence, according to your judgement also and the common counsel of us all, just as was once resolved, we shall be able together to arrange and to polish the things that must be done. But if anyone, refusing to do penance and to make satisfaction to God, shall pass over into the party of Felicissimus and of his satellites, and shall join himself to the heretical faction, let him know that he cannot afterwards return to the Church and communicate with the bishops and the people of Christ. I wish you, dearest brethren, ever to fare well, and to persist with us in continual prayers concerning the obtaining of the Lord's mercy. CYPRIAN TO HIS BROTHER CORNELIUS, GREETING. There came to us, dearest brother, sent by Novatian, Maximus the presbyter and Augendus the deacon, and a certain Machaeus and Longinus.
But indeed, when from the letters which they brought with them, and from their own speech and assertion, we had learned that Novatian had been made a bishop, moved by the wickedness of an ordination unlawful and made against the Catholic Church, we judged that they should at once be restrained from our communion.