(Commonly ascribed to the deacon Pontius.) Cyprian, a religious bishop and a glorious witness of God, even though he wrote many works through which the memory of his worthy name may survive, even though the rich fruitfulness of his eloquence and of God's grace so extended itself in the abundance and richness of his discourse that perhaps it will not fall silent until the end of the world: nevertheless, because to his works and merits even this prerogative is owed, it has seemed good to set down a few things in summary — not so that the life of so great a man should be hidden from anyone, even among the gentiles, but so that to our descendants also an incomparable and great testimony might be extended into immortal memory, and that they might be guided by writings to follow his example.
It would surely be a hard thing that, whereas our forefathers granted to plebeians and catechumens who attained martyrdom such great honor in veneration of that very martyrdom that they wrote down many — or, as I might almost say, nearly all — of their sufferings, precisely so that these might come even to our knowledge who were not yet born, the passion of Cyprian, so great a priest and so great a martyr, should be passed over — a man who even apart from martyrdom had what he might teach, and whose deeds while he lived must not lie hidden: deeds indeed so great and so vast and wondrous that I am deterred by the contemplation of their magnitude. And I confess myself unequal to setting forth a discourse worthily, in keeping with the honor of his merits, nor able so to recount deeds so grand that they may appear as great as they are:
except that a glorious multitude of deeds, sufficient unto itself, has no need of another's heralding. It is added to the heap that you also desire to hear much about him, or if it could be done, all of him, longing with a burning ardor at least to learn his deeds, even though for the time being his living words have fallen silent. In this matter, if I should say that we are wanting in the resources of eloquence, I say too little. For eloquence itself falls short of any faculty worthy to satisfy our longing with full spirit. Thus from both sides we are heavily pressed: he burdens us with his virtues, you weary us with your eager ears. Whence then shall I begin? Whence shall I approach the beginning of his good deeds, if not from the first principle of faith and his heavenly birth?
for indeed the deeds of a man of God ought to be reckoned from no other point than from when he was born of God. Let it be that studies and the liberal arts had imbued his devout breast — nevertheless I pass these over: for they pertained as yet to no usefulness except that of the world. After he had learned the sacred Scriptures too, and, the world's cloud being dispelled, had emerged into the light of spiritual wisdom, I shall tell whatever of his deeds I was present at, and whatever I have learned of the older matters — yet asking this indulgence, that whatever I shall say too little (for it is necessary that I say too little) be charged rather to my ignorance than to his glory. Among the first rudiments of his faith he believed nothing else worthy of God than that he should guard continence.
for then, he held, both heart and mind could become fit for the full capacity of truth, if one should trample down the concupiscence of the flesh by a robust and unimpaired course of holiness. Who ever recalled so great a miracle? The second birth had not yet enlightened the new man with the full splendor of divine light, and already by the mere preparation of that light he was overcoming the old and former darkness. Then, what is greater, when from divine reading he had already learned certain things — not according to the condition of his newness but according to the haste of his faith — at once he seized upon what he found that would profit toward winning the favor of the Lord.
Having sold off his possessions, dispensing nearly the whole proceeds toward the sustenance of the peace of many needy persons, he joined two goods at once: that he both spurned the ambition of the world, than which nothing is more pernicious, and fulfilled that mercy which God preferred even to His own sacrifices — a mercy which not even he had done who had said that he had kept all the commandments of the Law. And by an exceedingly swift haste of piety he almost began to be perfect before he had learned it. Who, I ask, of the men of old did this?
Who among the most ancient elders in the faith, whose minds and ears the divine words had struck for very many years, expended any such thing as this man, still raw in faith and to whom perhaps it could not yet be entrusted, accomplished by glorious and admirable works, surpassing the age of long standing? No one reaps as soon as he sows, no one has pressed a vintage from young trenches, no one has yet sought ripe fruits from saplings only just planted. In him all things ran their course incredibly. He anticipated — if it may be said, for the matter does not admit of belief — he anticipated, I say, the threshing before the sowing, the vintage before the shoot, the fruit before the root.
The writings of the apostles say that neophytes ought to be passed over, lest, with the stupor of heathenism still clinging to senses not yet grounded, an untaught newness should sin against God in some way. He was the first, and I think the only, example that one may be advanced more by faith than by length of time. But even though in the Acts of the Apostles that eunuch is described — who, because he had believed with his whole heart, was baptized by Philip at once — the comparison is not alike. For that man was both a Jew and, coming from the temple of the Lord, was reading the prophet Isaiah, and hoped in Christ, even though he had not yet believed that He had come: this man, coming from the unskilled gentiles, began with so ripe a faith as few perhaps have brought to perfection. There was, in short, no delay regarding the grace of God, no postponement. I have said too little:
he received the presbyterate, or the priesthood, at once. For who would not entrust all grades of honor to one who believed with such a mind? There are many things which he did while still a layman, many while already a presbyter, many which, following the examples of the righteous men of old with a like imitation, he carried out, rendering the dutiful offices of all religion in winning the favor of God. For he was wont to have this saying: that if he had read of anyone praised by the commendation of God, he would urge that it be inquired for what deeds he had pleased Him. If Job by some testimony was called glorious — a true worshiper of God, and one to whom on earth none could be compared — that man taught that whatever Job had done before, must be done, so that, while we too do the like, we may provoke a similar testimony of God upon ourselves.
'That man, despising the losses of his family estate, advanced so far in the exercise of virtue that he did not even feel the temporary losses of his piety. Penury did not break him, nor did grief, nor did a wife's persuasion turn him aside, nor did the dire torment of his own body shake him. His virtue remained fixed in its seat, and his devotion, founded on deep roots, yielded to no assault of the tempting devil, so as to keep him from blessing his Lord with grateful faith even amid adversities. His house lay open to whoever came: no widow was sent back with empty bosom, no needy person was not guided with him as escort, no one feeble of step was not borne with him as bearer, no one stripped of help from a more powerful hand was not protected with him as guardian.'
'These things,' he said, 'they ought to do who desire to please God.' And thus, running through the records of all good men, while he ever imitated the better, he himself also made himself worthy of imitation. There was, indeed, also from among us, in his company, a man of righteous and praiseworthy memory, Caecilianus, then both in age and in honor a presbyter, who had corrected him from worldly error to the recognition of the true Godhead. Him he loved with full honor and with all deference, looking up to him with submissive veneration, no longer as a friend equal to his soul, but as a parent of his new life.
In the end, that man, won over by his dutiful attentions, was provoked by the merits of his boundless love to such a degree that, departing from the world with his summons now near at hand, he commended to him his wife and children, and made the man whom he had made a partaker in the fellowship of the faith afterward also the heir of his piety. It would be a long task to go through each particular: to enumerate all is burdensome. For the proof of his good works I judge this alone to be enough — that by the judgment of God and the favor of the people, while still a neophyte and, as it was thought, a novice, he was chosen to the office of priesthood and the rank of the episcopate.
Although in the first days of his faith and at the still-untrained age of the spiritual life, so noble a disposition shone forth that, even though not yet by the office, he nevertheless promised the whole confidence of the impending priesthood, resplendent with its radiance of hope. Nor shall I pass over this excellent thing also: how, when the whole people, inspired by the Lord, leapt forward into love and honor of him, he humbly withdrew, yielding to those of longer standing and judging himself unworthy of the title of so great an honor — so that he might rather become worthy. For he becomes more worthy who excuses himself from what he deserves. With what ardor the people, then seething, surged to and fro, longing with spiritual desire, as the outcome taught, not for a bishop only:
for in him whom they then so demanded with a hidden presage of the Godhead, they sought not only a priest but also a future martyr. A teeming brotherhood had besieged the doors of his house, and anxious charity went round through every entrance. Perhaps that apostolic thing might then have befallen him which he wished — that he be let down through a window — if even then he were being likened to the Apostle by the very honor of his ordination. One might see all the rest awaiting his coming with suspended and anxious spirit, and receiving him as he came with excessive joy. Unwilling I say it, but say it I must: certain men resisted him — and that so that he might prevail; yet to these, with what gentleness of patience, how benevolently he showed indulgence, how mercifully
forgave them, afterward reckoning them among his closest friends and necessary companions, to the wonder of many. For to whom could the forgetting of so mindful a memory not be a marvel? From then on, who could suffice to recount how he conducted himself? What piety was in him, what vigor, how great his mercy, how great his discipline! So much of holiness and grace shone from his face that it confounded the minds of beholders. His countenance was grave yet glad; neither was his severity gloomy nor his affability excessive, but a temperament blended of both, so that one might be in doubt whether he deserved to be revered or to be loved — except that he deserved both to be revered and to be loved. Nor was his dress unlike his face, itself also temperate and of the middle way. Worldly pride had not puffed him up, nor yet had an affected penury made him squalid:
for this kind of clothing too is no less a matter of vainglory, in that an ambitious frugality shows itself in such a manner. But what would he as a bishop do concerning the poor, whom as a catechumen he had loved? Let the prelates of piety see to it — whether those whom the discipline of their very rank instructed for the office of good work, or those whom the religion of the common sacrament constrained to the duty of showing love: the episcopal chair received Cyprian already such from his own self; it did not make him so. Indeed, at once, for such merits, he attained even the glory of proscription. For nothing else was fitting than that the man who, within the secret recess of his conscience, flourished with all the honor of religion and faith, should also be publicly entitled by the celebrated report of the gentiles.
Indeed, the crown due to martyrdom might then, with the swiftness by which he always attained everything, have hastened upon him as well — especially since by oft-repeated demands he was clamored for to the lion: had it not been that he must pass through all the ranks of glory and so come to the highest, and had not the impending ruins required the aid of so fruitful a breast. For imagine him then translated by the dignity of martyrdom. Who would have shown the gain of grace advancing through faith? Who would have restrained the virgins, as if by certain reins of the Lord's reading, to a fitting discipline of chastity and a comportment worthy of holiness? Who would have taught penitence to the lapsed, the truth to heretics, unity to schismatics, peace and the law of evangelical prayer to the sons of God?
Through whom would blaspheming gentiles be vanquished by the things they hurl at us being turned back upon themselves? By whom would Christians of more delicate affection be consoled concerning the loss of their own, or — what is greater — those of lesser faith be consoled by hope of things to come? Whence would we so learn mercy, whence patience? Who would have checked the envious spite that comes from the venomous malignity of jealousy, by the sweetness of a saving remedy? Who would have raised up so great martyrs by the exhortation of the divine word? Who, finally, would have animated, by the incentive of the heavenly trumpet, so many confessors signed with a second inscription upon their branded brows and reserved as survivors for the example of martyrdom?
Well, well indeed and truly spiritually did it then come to pass that a man so necessary for so many and so good things was deferred from the consummation of martyrdom. Do you wish to know that his withdrawal was no cowardice? Even if I should offer no other excuse, he himself afterward suffered — a passion he would surely, after his custom, have avoided, if he had avoided it before as well. It was truly a dread, but a just dread: a dread that feared to offend the Lord, a dread that would rather obey the precepts of God than be crowned in such a way. For a mind devoted to God in all things, and thus bound by the divine admonitions, believed that, unless it had obeyed the Lord then commanding concealment, it would sin even by that very passion. I think, in short, that something more must even now be said concerning the usefulness of the delay, although we have already touched briefly upon a few points long since.
For while we satisfy the matters which seem to have followed afterward, it follows that we prove that withdrawal of his to have been conceived not from human faint-heartedness, but, as it truly is, to have been divine. An insolent and bitter onslaught of the hostile persecution had devastated the people, and the crafty enemy, who could not deceive all by a single fraud, wherever the incautious soldier had exposed a bare flank, had cast down individuals by varied slaughter with a different manner of raging. There needed to be one who could, with the remedy of heavenly medicine applied according to the quality of the wound, for the time being either lance or soothe the wounded men, struck by the varied art of the assaulting foe.
There was preserved a man of a temperament — beyond all else also spiritually balanced — who amid the rebounding waves of clashing schisms might steer the Church's middle course along a poised line. Are not these, I pray, divine counsels? Could this have happened without God? Let those who think such things can come about by chance see to it. The Church answers them in a clear voice, saying: I do not allow, I do not believe, that necessary men are reserved without the nod of God. Let us, however, run through the rest, if it seems good. Afterward there broke out a dire pestilence and an excessive devastation of a detestable disease, which, snatching away countless peoples by day each to his own resting-place with an abrupt onslaught, invaded house after house in order, of the trembling populace.
All shuddered, fled, shunned the contagion, impiously exposed their own kin — as though by casting out one about to die with the plague a man could also shut out death itself. Meanwhile there lay throughout the whole city, street by street, no longer the bodies but the corpses of very many, and they begged for mercy from those passing them by, through the contemplation of their mutual lot. No one looked to anything other than cruel gain. No one trembled at the recollection of a like fate, no one did to another what he himself wished to undergo. What amid these things did the pontiff of Christ and of God do — he who had surpassed the pontiffs of this world by as much more piety as he had by the truth of religion? To pass it over is a crime. The people being first gathered together in one place, he instructs them concerning the goods of mercy.
He teaches by the examples of the divine reading how greatly the offices of piety profit toward winning God's favor. Then thereupon he adds that it is no wonder if we should cherish only our own with the due service of love: for that man could become perfect who had done something more than the publican or the heathen — who, conquering evil with good and exercising the likeness of divine clemency, had loved even his enemies, who had prayed for the salvation of his persecutors, as the Lord admonishes and exhorts. 'He continually makes His sun to rise, and from time to time grants rains for the nourishing of the seeds, displaying all these things not for His own alone: and shall not he who professes himself to be even a son of God imitate the example of the Father?
It befits us to answer to our birth, and it is not fitting that those who are evidently reborn through God should be degenerate; rather, we should prove in our offspring the inherited transmission of a good father — emulation of goodness.' Many other things too, and indeed great ones, which the principle of keeping the volume within bounds does not permit to be repeated in a long-drawn-out work of discourse: concerning which it is enough to have said only this much. For if the gentiles could have heard those things from the rostra, perhaps they would at once believe. What would the Christian people do, whose very name is from faith? Therefore ministries were forthwith distributed according to the quality of the men and of the orders. Many who, by the benefit of poverty, could not supply expenses, supplied more than expenses, compensating with their own labor a recompense dearer than all riches.
And who would not hasten, under so great a teacher, to find some part in such a warfare, by which one might please both God the Father, and Christ the Judge, and, for the time being, the priest? It came to pass, therefore, by the bounty of overflowing works, what is good toward all, not toward the household of faith alone. There was done something more than what is recorded of the incomparable piety of Tobit. Let him pardon, and pardon again, and pardon frequently — or, to speak more truly, let him with justice concede that, although very much was permitted before Christ, something more was permitted after Christ, to whose times fullness is owed. That man gathered up only those of his own race, slain by the king and cast out. Upon these so good and so pious deeds there supervened exile.
For impiety always presents this requital: that it repays better deeds with worse. And what the priest of God answered when the proconsul questioned him, there are records that report. He is meanwhile shut out from the city — he who had done some good for the city's welfare, he who had labored that the eyes of the living might not endure the horror of the abode below, he, I say, who, keeping vigil in the watches of piety — O wickedness! — had with ungrateful kindness provided that, with all forsaking the foul face of the city, the deserted commonwealth and abandoned homeland should not feel the loss of many exiles. But let the world see to it, by which exile is reckoned among punishments. To those men their homeland is exceedingly dear, and a name shared in common with their parents:
but we abhor even our very parents, if they should counsel against the Lord. To those men it is a grievous penalty to live outside their own city: to the Christian this whole world is one home. Wherefore, although he may have been relegated to a hidden and secluded place, mingled with the things of his God, he cannot reckon it exile. Add that one who serves God wholly is a pilgrim even in his own city. For while by the continence of the Holy Spirit he abstains himself from carnal desires, laying aside the conversation of the former man, he is, among his own fellow-citizens — or, as I might almost say, among his very parents — a stranger to earthly life.
There is also this: even if this might in other circumstances seem a punishment, yet in cases and sentences of this kind, which we endure as trials to prove our virtue, it is no punishment, because it is glory. But grant indeed that exile is no punishment to us: let even their own conscience charge them with the ultimate crime and the most heinous impiety as witness — those who can inflict upon the innocent what they suppose to be a punishment. I do not wish now to describe the charm of the place, and for the moment I pass over its provision of every delight. Let us imagine that place foul with neglect, squalid to behold, having no wholesome waters, no pleasant greenery, no nearness of a shore, but vast crags amid the inhospitable defiles of woodlands, in an utterly remote wilderness, set apart in a pathless corner of the world.
Granted that such a place, to which Cyprian, God's priest, had come, might bear the name of exile — yet would it be exile, if the services of men were lacking, when birds might minister as to Elijah, or angels as to Daniel? Far be it, far be it, that anyone should believe that anything would be wanting to even the least of those who are appointed to confess the Name. Far less, then, that such a pontiff of God, who had always devoted himself to works of mercy, should lack the resources of all honours. Now, then, what I had set in the second place, let us take up again with thanksgiving: that it was provided by God, even for the spirit of so great a man, that the place was sunny and suitable, a lodging private according to his wish, and whatever has been promised beforehand to be added to those who seek the kingdom and the righteousness of God.
And to pass over the throng of visiting brethren and the love of the very citizens of that place, which supplied all those things of which he seemed to have been defrauded, I will not omit the admirable visitation of God, by which He so willed His bishop to be in exile yet untroubled about the suffering to come, that with fuller assurance of the impending martyrdom He possessed Curubis as no mere exile, but as a martyr. 'For on that day,' he says, 'when we abode in the place of exile' (for the esteem of his love had chosen me too among his household companions as a voluntary exile — would that it had been permitted also in his passion!) 'there appeared to me,' he says, 'while I was not yet sunk in the rest of sleep, a young man of more than human stature:
who, while he led me as if to the praetorium, I seemed to myself to be brought up to the tribunal of the proconsul as he sat. As soon as he looked upon me, he began at once to note down on a tablet a sentence which I did not know, for he had asked nothing of me by the customary interrogation. But the young man who stood behind him, being most curious, read whatever had been noted down. And because he could not utter it in words from there, he showed by an expressive gesture what was being transacted in the writing of that tablet. For with his hand spread out and flattened like a sword-blade, imitating the stroke of the usual execution, he expressed, as clearly as in plain speech, what he wished to be understood. I understood that the sentence of suffering was to come.
I began at once to entreat and beg that a delay of even a single day might be granted me, until I should set my affairs in lawful order. And when I had repeated my prayers again and again, he began once more to note down something on the tablet. Yet I perceived from the serenity of the judge's countenance that his mind had been moved, as it were, by a just petition. And that young man too, who long before had betrayed the indication of the passion by gesture rather than by speech, hastened by a secret nod, repeated again and again, to signify with his fingers crossed one after another that the delay which was sought for the morrow had been granted. And although the sentence was not read out, even so I revived with a heart quite glad at the joy of the delay obtained:
yet from the agitation of an uncertain interpretation I trembled so that the remnants of dread still smote my exulting heart with utter terror.' What is more manifest than this revelation, what more blessed than this favour? Beforehand were foretold to him all the things that afterward followed. Nothing of God's words was diminished, nothing of so holy a promise was curtailed. Recognize, finally, each detail according as it was shown. He asks a delay of the morrow, when the sentence of suffering was being deliberated, requesting that he might order his affairs on that day which he had obtained. This one day signified a year, which he was to spend in the world after the vision. For, to speak more plainly, on that very day, after a full year had passed, he was crowned — the day on which this had been shown to him a year before.
But the Day of the Lord — even though in the divine Scriptures we read not 'a year' — we understand that span of time to be owing to the promise of things to come. Hence it makes no difference if now, under the signification of a day, only a year was shown, since that which is greater ought to be the fuller. But as for what was uttered by a nod rather than by speech, the verbal expression was being reserved for the representation of the time: for then a thing is usually uttered in words whenever whatever is uttered is fulfilled. For indeed no one truly understood why this had been shown, until afterward, on the same day on which he had seen it, he was crowned. None the less, in the meantime, the impending passion was known for certain by all; yet the certain day of the passion was passed over in silence by all those very people, as though they were ignorant of it.
Indeed, in the Scriptures too I find something of this sort. For Zechariah the priest, when a son had been promised him by the angel, fell dumb because he had not believed, so that, about to write his son's name rather than to tell it, he asked for the tablets by a sign. Rightly here too, where God's messenger expressed the impending passion of the bishop by a nod rather than by speech, he both admonished his faith and fortified the priest. But the reason for seeking the delay arose from the ordering of affairs and the disposition of his will. And what affair, or what intention, was to be ordered, save the state of the Church? The whole delay was granted, that whatever had to be arranged concerning the final tokens of care for the poor might be set in order.
And I think for no other reason — nay rather for this alone — that even an indulgence was granted by those very men who had cast him out and who were about to slay him: namely, that he, present, might minister to the present poor in the last and, to speak more fully, the entire expenses of his final stewardship. So, his affairs being so piously ordered and his will thus disposed, the morrow drew near. Already a messenger had come from the City concerning Xystus, the good and peaceable priest and therefore most blessed martyr. The executioner was looked for now at any moment, coming to strike the necks devoted to the most holy victim; and so all those days were of daily expectation of dying, so that a crown might be reckoned to each one.
Meanwhile there gathered many men of the most distinguished and illustrious order and lineage, and noble too in worldly rank, who, on account of their old friendship with him, kept urging him to withdraw; and lest mere persuasion should be too little, they even offered places to which he might retire. But he, with his mind already suspended toward heaven, had despised the world, nor would he assent to their flattering persuasions. He would perhaps then too have done what was asked by so many faithful friends, had he also been commanded by a divine bidding.
But neither must that lofty glory of so great a man be passed over without proclamation: that while the world was already swelling and panting, out of confidence in its rulers, to harass the Name, he was instructing the servants of God, as occasion was given, with the Lord's exhortations, and stirring them to trample upon the sufferings of this present time by the contemplation of the glory to come. Indeed, so great was his desire for preaching that he wished the marks of the passion might so befall him that, while he was speaking of God, he might be slain in the very act of his discourse.