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THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN I-LIV.

EPISTLE I.(1)

TO DONATUS.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN HAD PROMISED DONATUS THAT HE WOULD HAVE A DISCOURSE WITH
HIM CONCERNING THINGS DIVINE, AND NOW BEING REMINDED OF HIS PROMISE, HE
FULFILS IT. COMMENDING AT LENGTH THE GRACE OF GOD CONFERRED IN BAPTISM, HE
DECLARES HOW HE HAD BEEN CHANGED THEREBY; AND, FINALLY, POINTING OUT THE
ERRORS OF THE WORLD, HE EXHORTS TO CONTEMPT OF IT AND TO READING AND
PRAYER.

   1. CAECILIUS CYPRIAN to Donatus sends, greeting. You rightly remind me,
dearest Donatus for I not only remember my promise, but I confess that this
is the appropriate time for its fulfilment, when the vintage festival
invites the mind to unbend in repose, and to enjoy the annual and appointed
respite of the declining year.(2) Moreover, the place is in accord with the
season, and the pleasant aspect of the gardens harmonizes with the gentle
breezes of a mild autumn in soothing and cheering the senses. In such a
place as this it is delightful to pass the day in discourse, and, by the
(study of the sacred) parables,(3) to train the conscience of the breast to
the apprehension of the divine precepts. And that no profane intruder may
interrupt our converse, nor any unrestrained clatter of a noisy household
disturb it, let us seek this bower.(4) The neighbouring thickets ensure us
solitude, and the vagrant trailings of the vine branches creeping in
pendent mazes among the reeds  that support them have made for us a porch
vines and a leafy shelter. Pleasantly here we clothe our thoughts in words;
and while we gratify our eyes with the agreeable outlook upon trees and
vines, the mind is at once instructed by what we hear, and nourished by
what we see, although at the present time your only pleasure and your only
interest is in our discourse. Despising the pleasures of sight, your eye is
now fixed on me. With your mind as well as your ears you are altogether a
listener; and a listener, too, with an eagerness proportioned to your
affection.

   2. And yet, of what kind or of what amount is anything that my mind is
likely to communicate to yours? The poor mediocrity of my shallow
understanding produces a very limited harvest, and enriches the soil with
no fruitful   deposits. Nevertheless, with such powers as I have, I will
set about the matter; for the subject  itself on which I am about to speak
will assist me. In courts of justice, in the public assembly, in political
debate, a copious eloquence may be the glory of a voluble ambition; but in
speaking of the Lord God, a chaste simplicity of expression strives for the
conviction of faith rather with the substance, than with the powers, of
eloquence. Therefore accept from me things, not clever but weighty, words,
not decked up to charm a popular audience with cultivated rhetoric, but
simple and fitted by their unvarnished truthfulness for the proclamation of
the divine mercy. Accept what is felt before it is spoken, what has not
been accumulated with tardy painstaking during the lapse of years, but has
been inhaled in one breath of ripening grace.

   3. While I was still lying in darkness and gloomy night, wavering
hither and thither, tossed about on the foam of this boastful age, and
uncertain of my wandering steps, knowing nothing of my real life, and
remote from truth and light, I used to regard it as a difficult matter, and
especially as difficult in respect of my character at that time, that a man
should be capable of being born again(5)--a truth which the divine mercy
had announced for my salvation,--and that a man quickened to a new life in
the layer of saving water should be able to put off what he had previously
been; and, although retaining all his bodily structure, should be himself
changed in heart and soul. "How," said I, "is such a conversion possible,
that there should be a sudden and rapid divestment of all which, either
innate in us has hardened in the corruption of our material nature, or
acquired by us has become inveterate by long accustomed use? These things
have become deeply and radically engrained within us. When does he learn
thrift who has been used to liberal banquets and sumptuous feasts? And he
who has been glittering in gold and purple, and has been celebrated for his
costly attire, when does he reduce himself to ordinary and simple clothing?
One who has felt the charm of the fasces and of civic honours shrinks from
becoming a mere private and inglorious citizen. The man who is attended by
crowds of clients, and dignified by the numerous association of an
officious train, regards it as a punishment when he is alone. It is
inevitable, as it ever has been, that the love of wine should entice, pride
inflate, anger inflame, covetousness disquiet, cruelty stimulate, ambition
delight, lust  hasten to ruin, with allurements that will not let go their
hold."

   4. These were my frequent thoughts. For as I myself was held in bonds
by the innumerable errors of my previous life, from which I did not believe
that I could by possibility be delivered, so I was disposed to acquiesce in
my clinging vices; and because I despaired of better things, I used to
indulge my sins as if they were actually parts of me, and indigenous to me.
But after that, by the help of the water of new birth, the stain of former
years had been washed away, and a light from above, serene and pure, had
been infused into my reconciled heart,--after that, by the agency of the
Spirit breathed from heaven, a second birth had restored me to a new man;--
then, in a wondrous manner, doubtful things at once began to assure
themselves to me, hidden things to be revealed, dark things to be
enlightened, what before had seemed difficult began to suggest a means of
accomplishment, what had been thought impossible, to be capable of being
achieved; so that I was enabled to acknowledge that what previously, being
born of the flesh, had been living in the practice of sins, was of the
earth earthly, but had now begun to be of God, and was animated by the
Spirit of holiness. You yourself assuredly know and recollect as well as I
do what was taken away from us, and what was given to us by that death of
evil, and that life of virtue. You yourself know this without my
information. Anything like boasting in one's own praise is hateful,
although   we cannot in reality boast but only be grateful  for whatever we
do not ascribe to man's virtue but declare to be the gift of God; so that
now we sin not is the beginning of the work of faith, whereas that we
sinned before was the result of human error. All our power is of God; I
say, of God. From Him we have life, from Him we have strength, by power
derived and conceived from Him we do, while yet in this world, foreknow the
indications of things to come. Only let fear be the keeper of innocence,
that the Lord, who of His mercy has flowed(1) into our hearts in the access
of celestial grace, may be kept by righteous submissiveness in the hostelry
of a grateful mind, that the assurance we have gained may not beget
carelessness, and so the old enemy creep upon us again.

   5. But if you keep the way of innocence, the way of righteousness, if
you walk with a firm and steady step, if, depending on God with your whole
strength and with your whole heart, you only be what you have begun to be,
liberty and power to do is given you in proportion to the increase of your
spiritual grace. For there is not, as is the case with earthly benefits,
any measure or stint in the dispensing of the heavenly gift. The Spirit
freely flowing forth is restrained by no limits, is checked by no closed
barriers within certain bounded spaces; it flows perpetually, it is
exuberant in its affluence. Let our heart only be athirst, and be ready to
receive: in the degree in which we bring to it a  capacious faith, in that
measure we draw from it an overflowing grace. Thence is given power, with
modest chastity, with a sound mind, with a simple voice, with unblemished
virtue, that is able to quench the virus of poisons for the healing of the
sick, to purge out the stains of foolish souls by restored health, to bid
peace to those hat are at enmity, repose to the violent, gentleness to the
unruly,--by startling threats to force to avow themselves the impure and
vagrant spirits that have betaken themselves into the bodies of men whom
they purpose to destroy, to drive them with heavy blows to come out of
them, to stretch them out struggling, howling, groaning with increase of
constantly renewing pain, to beat them with scourges, to roast them with
fire: the matter is carded on there, but is not seen; the strokes inflicted
are hidden, but the penalty is manifest. Thus, in respect of what we have
already begun to be, the Spirit that we have received possesses its own
liberty of action; while in that we have not yet changed our body and
members, the carnal view is still darkened by the clouds of this world. How
great is this empire of the mind, and what a power it has, not alone that
itself is withdrawn from the mischievous associations of the world, as one
who is purged and pure can suffer no stain of a hostile irruption, but that
it becomes still greater and stronger in its might, so that it can rule
over all the imperious host of the attacking adversary with its sway!

   6. But in order that the characteristics of the divine may shine more
brightly by the development of the truth, I will give you light to
apprehend it, the obscurity caused by sin being wiped away. I will draw
away the veil from the darkness of this hidden world. For a brief space
conceive yourself to be transported to one of the loftiest peaks of some
inaccessible mountain, thence gaze on the appearances of things lying below
you, and with eyes turned in various directions look upon the eddies of the
billowy world, while you yourself are removed from earthly contacts,--you
will at once begin to feel compassion for the world, and with self-
recollection and increasing gratitude to God, you will rejoice with all the
greater joy that you have escaped it. Consider the roads blocked up by
robbers, the seas beset with pirates, wars scattered all over the earth
with the bloody horror of camps. The whole world is wet with mutual blood;
and murder, which in the case of an individual is admitted to be a crime,
is called a virtue when it is committed wholesale. Impunity is claimed for
the wicked deeds, not on the plea that they are guiltless, but because the
cruelty is perpetrated on a grand scale.

   7. And now, if you turn your eyes and your regards to the cities
themselves, you will behold a concourse more fraught with sadness than any
solitude. The gladiatorial games are prepared, that blood may gladden the
lust of cruel eyes. The body is fed up with stronger food, and the vigorous
mass of limbs is enriched with brawn and muscle, that the wretch fattened
for punishment may die a harder death. Man is slaughtered that man may be
gratified, and the skill that is best able to kill is an exercise and an
art. Crime is not only committed, but it is taught. What can be said more
inhuman,--what more repulsive? Training is undergone to acquire the power
to murder, and the achievement of murder is its glory. What state of
things, I pray you, can that be, and what can it be like, in which men,
whom none have condemned, offer themselves to the wild beasts--men of ripe
age, of sufficiently beautiful person, clad in costly garments? Living men,
they are adorned for a voluntary death; wretched men, they boast of their
own miseries. They fight with beasts, not for their crime, but for their
madness. Fathers look on their own sons; a brother is in the arena, and his
sister is hard by; and although a grander display of pomp increases the
price of the exhibition, yet, oh shame! even the mother will pay the
increase in order that she may be present at her own miseries. And in
looking upon scenes so frightful and so impious and so deadly, they do not
seem to be aware that they are parricides with their eyes.

   8. Hence turn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored,
of another kind of spectacle.(1) In the theatres also you will behold what
may well cause you grief and shame. It is the tragic buskin which relates
in verse the crimes of ancient days. The old horrors(2) of parricide and
incest are unfolded in action calculated to express the image of the truth,
so that, as the ages pass by, any crime that was formerly committed may not
be forgotten. Each generation is reminded by what it hears, that whatever
has once been done may be done again. Crimes never die out by the lapse of
ages; wickedness is never abolished by process of time; impiety is never
buried in oblivion. Things which have now ceased to be actual deeds of vice
become examples. In the mimes, moreover, by the teaching of infamies, the
spectator is attracted either to reconsider what he may have done in
secret, or to hear what he may do. Adultery is learnt while it is seen; and
while the mischief having public authority panders to vices, the matron,
who perchance had gone to the spectacle a modest woman, returns from it
immodest. Still further, what a degradation of morals it is, what a
stimulus to abominable deeds, what food for vice, to be polluted by
histrionic gestures, against the covenant and law of one's birth, to gaze
in detail upon the endurance of incestuous abominations! Men are
emasculated, and all the pride and vigour of their sex is effeminated in
the disgrace of their enervated body; and he is most pleasing there who has
most completely broken down the man into the woman. He grows into praise by
virtue of his crime; and the more he is degraded, the more skilful he is
considered to be. Such a one is looked upon--oh shame! and looked upon with
pleasure. And what cannot such a creature suggest? He inflames the senses,
he flatters the affections, he drives out the more vigorous conscience of a
virtuous breast; nor is there wanting authority for the enticing
abomination, that the mischief may creep upon people with a less
perceptible approach. They picture Venus immodest, Mars adulterous; and
that Jupiter of theirs not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed
with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders, now growing white in
the feathers of a swan, now pouring down in a golden shower, now breaking
forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the
question, Can he who looks upon such things be healthyminded or modest? Men
imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes
become their religion.(3)

   9. Oh, if placed on that lofty watch-tower you could gaze into the
secret places--if you could open the closed doors of sleeping chambers, and
recall their dark recesses to the perception of sight,--you would behold
things done by immodest persons which no chaste eye could look upon; you
would see what even to see is a crime; you would see what people embruted
with the madness of vice deny that they have done, and yet hasten to do,--
men with frenzied lusts rushing upon men, doing things which afford no
gratification even to those who do them. I am deceived if the man who is
guilty of such things as these does not accuse others of them. The depraved
maligns the depraved, and thinks that he himself, though conscious of the
guilt, has escaped, as if consciousness were not a sufficient condemnation.
The same people who are accusers in public are criminals in private,
condemning themselves at the same time as they condemn the culprits; they
denounce abroad what they commit at home, willingly doing what, when they
have done, they accuse,--a daring which assuredly is fitly mated with vice,
and an impudence quite in accordance with shameless people. And I beg you
not to wonder at the things that persons of this kind speak: the offence of
their mouths in words is the least of which they are guilty.(1)

   10. But after considering the public roads full of pitfalls, after
battles of many kinds scattered abroad over the whole world, after
exhibitions either bloody or infamous, after the abominations of lust,
whether exposed for sale in brothels or hidden within the domestic walls --
abominations, the audacity of which is greater in proportion to the secrecy
of the crime,--possibly you may think that the Forum at least is free from
such things, that it is neither exposed to exasperating wrongs, nor
polluted by the association of criminals. Then turn your gaze in that
direction: there you will discover things more odious than ever, so that
thence you will be more desirous of turning away your eyes, although the
laws are carved on twelve tables, and the statutes are publicly prescribed
on brazen tablets. Yet wrong is done in the midst of the laws themselves;
wickedness is committed in the very face of the statutes; innocence is not
preserved even in the place where it is defended. By turns the rancour of
disputants rages; and when peace is broken among the togas,(2) the Forum
echoes with the madness of strife. There close at hand is the spear and the
sword, and the executioner also; there is the claw that tears, the rack
that stretches, the fire that burns up,--more tortures for one poor human
body than it has limbs. And in such cases who is there to help? One's
patron? He makes a feint, and deceives. The judge? But he sells his
sentence. He who sits to avenge crimes commits them, and the judge becomes
the culprit, in order that the accused may perish innocently. Crimes are
everywhere common; and everywhere in the multiform character of sin, the
pernicious poison acts by means of degraded minds. One man forges a will,
another by a capital fraud makes a false deposition; on the one hand,
children are cheated of their inheritances, on the other, strangers are
endowed with their estates. The opponent makes his charge, the false
accuser attacks, the witness defames, on all sides the venal impudence of
hired voices sets about the falsification of charges, while in the meantime
the guilty do not even perish with the innocent. There is no fear about the
laws; no concern for either inquisitor or judge; when the sentence can be
bought off for money, it is not cared for. It is a crime now among the
guilty to be innocent; whoever does not imitate the wicked is an offence to
them. The laws have come to terms with crimes, and whatever is public has
begun to be allowed. What can be the modesty, what can be the integrity,
that prevails there, when there are none to condemn the wicked, and one
only meets with those who ought themselves to be condemned?

   11. But that we may not perchance appear as if we were picking out
extreme cases, and with the view of disparagement were seeking to attract
your attention to those things whereof the sad and revolting view may
offend the gaze of a better conscience, I will now direct you to such
things as the world in its ignorance accounts good. Among these also you
will behold things that will shock you. In respect of what you regard as
honours, of what you consider the fasces, what you count affluence in
riches, what you think power in the camp, the glory of the purple in the
magisterial office, the power of licence in the chief command,--there is
hidden the virus of ensnaring mischief, and an appearance of smiling
wickedness, joyous indeed, but the treacherous deception of hidden
calamity. Just as some poison, in which the flavour having been medicated
with sweetness, craftily mingled in its deadly juices, seems, when taken,
to be an ordinary draught, but when it is drunk up, the destruction that
you have swallowed assails you. You see, forsooth, that man distinguished
by his brilliant dress, glittering, as he thinks, in his purple. Yet with
what baseness has he purchased this glitter! What contempts of the proud
has he had first to submit to! what haughty thresholds has he, as an early
courtier, besieged! How many scornful footsteps of arrogant great men has
he had to precede, thronged in the crowd of clients, that by and by a
similar procession might attend and precede him with salutations,--a train
waiting not upon his person, but upon his power! for he has no claim to be
regarded for his character, but for his fasces. Of these, finally, you may
see the degrading end, when the time-serving sycophant has departed, and
the hanger-on, deserting them, has defiled the exposed side of the man who
has retired into a private condition.(1) It is then that the mischiefs done
to the squandered family-estate smite upon the conscience, then the losses
that have exhausted the fortune are known,--expenses by which the favour of
the populace was bought, and the people's breath asked for with fickle and
empty entreaties. Assuredly, it was a vain and foolish boastfulness to have
desired to set forth in the gratification of a disappointing spectacle,
what the people would not receive, and what would ruin the magistrates.

   12. But those, moreover, whom you consider rich, who add forests to
forests, and who, excluding the poor from their neighbourhood, stretch out
their fields far and wide into space without any limits, who possess
immense heaps of silver and gold and mighty sums of money, either in built-
up heaps or in buried stores,--even in the midst of their riches those are
torn to pieces by the anxiety of vague thought, lest the robber should
spoil, lest the murderer should attack, test the envy of some wealthier
neighbour should become hostile, and harass them with malicious lawsuits.
Such a one enjoys no security either in his food or in his sleep. In the
midst of the banquet he sighs, although he drinks from a jewelled goblet;
and when his luxurious bed has enfolded his body, languid with feasting, in
its yielding bosom, he lies wakeful in the midst of the down; nor does he
perceive, poor wretch, that these things are merely gilded torments, that
he is held in bondage by his gold, and that he is the slave of his luxury
and wealth rather than their master. And oh, the odious blindness of
perception, and the deep darkness of senseless greed! although he might
disburden himself and get rid of the load, he rather continues to brood
over his vexing wealth,--he goes on obstinately clinging to his tormenting
hoards. From him there is no liberality to dependents, no communication to
the poor. And yet such people call that their own money, which they guard
with jealous labour, shut up at home as if it were another's, and from
which they derive no benefit either for their friends, for their children,
or, in fine, for themselves. Their possession amounts to this only, that
they can keep others  from possessing it; and oh, what a marvellous
perversion of names! they call those things goods, which they absolutely
put to none but bad uses.

   13. Or think you that even those are secure,--that those at least are
safe with some stable permanence among the chaplets of honour and vast
wealth, whom, in the glitter of royal palaces, the safeguard of watchful
arms surrounds? They have greater fear than others. A man is constrained to
dread no less than he is dreaded. Exaltation exacts its penalties equally
from the more powerful, although he may be hedged in with bands of
satellites, and may guard his person with the enclosure and protection of a
numerous retinue. Even as he does not allow his inferiors to feel security,
it is inevitable that he himself should want the sense of security. The
power of those whom power makes terrible to others, is, first of all,
terrible to themselves. It smiles to rage, it cajoles to deceive, it
entices to slay, it lifts up to cast down. With a certain usury of
mischief, the greater the height of dignity and honours attained, the
greater is the interest of penalty required.

   14. Hence, then, the one peaceful and trustworthy tranquillity, the one
solid and firm and constant security, is this, for a man to withdraw from
these eddies of a distracting world, and, anchored on the ground of the
harbour of salvation, to lift his eyes from earth to heaven; and having
been admitted to the gift of God, and being already very near to his God in
mind, he may boast, that whatever in human affairs others esteem lofty and
grand, lies altogether beneath his consciousness. He who is actually
greater than the world can crave nothing, can desire nothing, from the
world. How stable, how free from all shocks is that safeguard; how heavenly
the protection in its perennial blessings,--to be loosed from the snares of
this entangling world, and to be purged from earthly dregs, and fitted for
the light of eternal immortality! He will see what crafty mischief of the
foe that previously attacked us has been in progress against us. We are
constrained to have more love for what we shall be, by being allowed to
know and to condemn what we were. Neither for this purpose is it necessary
to pay a price either in the way of bribery or of labour; so that man's
elevation or dignity or power should be begotten in him with elaborate
effort; but it is a gratuitous gift from God, and it is accessible to all.
As the sun shines spontaneously, as the day gives light, as the fountain
flows, as the shower yields moisture, so does the heavenly Spirit infuse
itself into us. When the soul, in its gaze into heaven, has recognised its
Author, it rises higher than the sun, and far transcends all this earthly
power, and begins to be that which it believes itself to be.(2)

   15. Do you, however, whom the celestial warfare has enlisted in the
spiritual camp, only observe a discipline uncorrupted and chastened in the
virtues of religion. Be constant as well in prayer as in reading; now speak
with God, now let God speak with you, let Him instruct you in His precepts,
let Him direct you. Whom He has made rich, none shall make poor; for, in
fact, there can be no poverty to him whose breast has once been supplied
with heavenly food. Ceilings enriched with gold, and houses adorned with
mosaics of costly marble, will seem mean to you, now when you know that it
is you yourself who are rather to be perfected, you who are rather to be
adorned, and that that dwelling in which God has dwelt as in a temple, in
which the Holy Spirit has begun to make His abode, is of more importance
than all others. Let us embellish this house with the colours of innocence,
let us enlighten it with the light of justice: this will never fall into
decay with the wear of age, nor shall it be defiled by the tarnishing of
the colours of its walls, nor of its gold. Whatever is artificially
beautified is perishing; and such things as contain not the reality of
possession afford no abiding assurance to their possessors. But this
remains in a beauty perpetually vivid, in perfect honour, in permanent
splendour. It can neither decay nor be destroyed; it can only be fashioned
into greater perfection when the body returns to it.

   16. These things, dearest Donatus, briefly for the present. For
although what you profitably hear delights your patience, indulgent in its
goodness, your well-balanced mind, and your assured faith--and nothing is
so pleasant to your ears as what is pleasant to you in God,--yet, as we are
associated as neighbours, and are likely to talk together frequently, we
ought to have some moderation in our conversation; and since this  is a
holiday rest, and a time of leisure, whatever remains of the day, now that
the sun is sloping towards the evening,(1) let us spend it in gladness,
nor let even the hour of repast be without  heavenly grace. Let the
temperate meal resound with psalms;(2) and as your memory is tenacious and
your voice musical, undertake this   office, as is your wont. You will
provide a better   entertainment for your dearest friends, if, while   we
have something spiritual to listen to, the  sweetness of religious music
charm our ears.

EPISTLE II.(3)

FROM THE ROMAN CLERGY TO THE CARTHAGINIAN CLERGY, ABOUT THE RETIREMENT OF
THE BLESSED CYPRIAN.

ARGUMENT.--THE ROMAN CLERGY HAD LEARNT FROM CREMENTIUS THE SUB-DEACON, THAT
IN THE TIME OF PERSECUTION CYPRIAN HAD WITHDRAWN HIMSELF. THEREFORE, WITH
THEIR ACCUSTOMED ZEAL FOR THE FAITH, THEY REMIND THE CARTHAGINIAN CLERGY OF
THEIR DUTY, AND INSTRUCT THEM WHAT TO DO IN THE CASE OF THE LAPSED, DURING
THE INTERVAL OF THE BISHOP'S ABSENCE.

   1. We have been informed by Crementius the sub-deacon, who came to us
from you, that the blessed father(4) Cyprian has for a certain reason
withdrawn; "in doing which he acted quite rightly, because he is a person
of eminence, and because a conflict is impending," which God has allowed in
the world, for the sake of cooperating with His servants in their struggle
against the adversary, and was, moreover, willing that this conflict should
show to angels and to men that the victor shall be crowned, while the
vanquished shall in himself receive the doom which has been made manifest
to us. Since, moreover, it devolves upon us who appear to be placed on
high, in the place of a shepherd,(5) to keep watch over the flock; if we be
found neglectful, it will be said to us, as it was said to our predecessors
also, who in such wise negligent had been placed in charge, that "we have
not sought for that which was lost, and have not corrected the wanderer,
and have not bound up that which was broken, but have eaten their milk, and
been clothed with their wool;"(6) and then also the Lord Himself,
fulfilling what had been written in the law and the prophets, teaches,
saying, "I am the good shepherd, who lay down my life for the sheep. But
the hireling, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and
leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf scatter-eth them."(7) To Simon,
too, He speaks thus: "Lovest thou me? He answered, I do love Thee. He saith
to him, Feed my sheep."(8) We know that this saying arose out of the very
circumstance of his withdrawal, and the rest of the disciples did
likewise.(9)

   2. We are unwilling, therefore, beloved brethren, that you should be
found hirelings, but we desire you to be good shepherds, since you are
aware that no slight danger threatens you if you do not exhort our brethren
to stand stedfast in the faith, so that the brotherhood be not absolutely
rooted out, as being of those who rush headlong into idolatry. Neither is
it in words only that we exhort you to this; but you will be able to
ascertain from very many who come to you from us, that, God blessing us, we
both have done and still do all these things ourselves with all anxiety and
worldly risk, having before our eyes rather the fear of God and eternal
sufferings than the fear of men and a short-lived discomfort, not forsaking
the brethren, but exhorting them to stand firm in the faith, and to be
ready to go with the Lord. And we have even recalled those who were
ascending(1) to do that to which they were constrained. The Church stands
in faith, notwithstanding that some have been driven to fall by very
terror, whether that they were persons of eminence, or that they were
afraid, when seized, with the fear of man: these, however, we did not
abandon, although they were separated from us, but exhorted them, and do
exhort them, to repent, if in any way they may receive pardon from Him who
is able to grant it; test, haply, if they should be deserted by us, they
should become worse.

   3. You see, then, brethren, that you also ought to do the like, so that
even those who have fallen may amend their minds by your exhortation; and
if they should be seized once more, may confess, and may so make amends for
their previous sin. And there are other matters which are incumbent on you,
which also we have here added, as that if any who may have fallen into this
temptation begin to be taken with sickness, and repent of what they have
done, and desire communion, it should in any wise be granted them. Or if
you have widows or bedridden people(2) who are unable to maintain
themselves,  or those who are in prisons or are excluded from their own
dwellings, these ought in all cases to have some to minister to them.
Moreover, catechumens when seized with sickness ought not to be
deceived,(3) but help is to be afforded them. And, as matter of the
greatest importance, if the bodies of the martyrs and others be not buried,
a considerable risk is incurred by those whose duty it is to do this
office. By whomsoever of you, then, and on whatever occasion this duty may
have been performed, we are sure that he is regarded as a good servant,--as
one who has been faithful in the least, and will be appointed ruler over
ten cities. May God, however, who gives all things to them that hope in
Him, grant to us that we may all be found in these works. The brethren who
are in bonds greet you, as do the elders, and the whole Church, which
itself also with the deepest anxiety keeps watch over all who call on the
name of the Lord. And we likewise beg you in your turn to have us in
remembrance. Know, moreover, that Bassianus has come to us; and we request
of you who have a zeal for God, to send a copy of this letter to whomsoever
you are able, as occasions may serve, or make your own opportunities, or
send a message, that they may stand firm and stedfast in the faith. We bid
you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE III.(4)

TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ABIDING AT ROME. A.D. 250.

ARGUMENT.--THIS IS A FAMILIAR AND FRIENDLY EPISTLE; SO THAT IT REQUIRES NO
FORMAL ARGUMENT, ESPECIALLY AS IT CAN BE SUFFICIENTLY GATHERED FROM THE
TITLE ITSELF. THE LETTER OF THE ROMAN CLERGY, TO WHICH CYPRIAN IS REPLYING,
IS MISSING.

   1. Cyprian to the elders and deacons, brethren abiding at Rome, sends,
greeting. When the report of the departure of the excellent man, my
colleague,(5) was still uncertain among us, my beloved brethren, and I was
wavering doubtfully in my opinion on the matter, I received a letter sent
to me from you by Crementius the sub-deacon, in which I was most abundantly
informed of his glorious end; and I rejoiced greatly that, in harmony with
the integrity of his administration, an honourable consummation also
attended him. Wherein, moreover, I greatly congratulate you, that you
honour his memory with a testimony so public and so illustrious, so that by
your means is made known to me, not only what is glorious to you in
connection with the memory of your bishop, but what ought to afford to me
also an example of faith and virtue. For in proportion as the fall of a
bishop is an event which tends ruinously to the fall of his followers, so
on the other hand it is a useful and helpful thing when a bishop, by the
firmness of his faith, sets himself forth to his brethren as an object of
imitation.

   2. I have, moreover, read another epistle,(6) in which neither the
person who wrote nor the persons to whom it was written were plainly
declared; and inasmuch as in the same letter both the writing and the
matter, and even the paper itself, gave me the idea that something had been
taken away, or had been changed from the original, I have sent you back the
epistle as it actually came to hand, that you may examine whether it is the
very same which you gave to Crementius the sub-deacon, to carry. For it is
a very serious thing if the truth of a clerical letter is corrupted by any
falsehood or deceit. In order, then, that we may know this, ascertain
whether the writing and subscription are yours, and write me again what is
the truth of the matter. I bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily
farewell.

EPISTLE IV.(1)

TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN EXHORTS HIS CLERGY FROM HIS PLACE OF RETIREMENT, THAT IN
HIS ABSENCE THEY SHOULD BE UNITED; THAT NOTHING SHOULD BE WANTING TO
PRISONERS OR TO THE REST OF THE POOR; AND FURTHER, THAT THEY SHOULD KEEP
THE PEOPLE IN QUIET, LEST, IF THEY SHOULD RUSH IN CROWDS TO VISIT THE
MARTYRS IN PRISON, THIS PRIVILEGE SHOULD AT LENGTH BE FORBIDDEN THEM. A.D.
250.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his beloved brethren,
greeting. Being by the grace of God in safety, dearest brethren, I salute
you, rejoicing that I am informed of the prosperity of all things in
respect of your safety also; and as the condition of the place(2) does not
permit me to be with you now, I beg you, by your faith and your religion,
to discharge there both your own office and mine, that there may be nothing
wanting either to discipline or diligence. In respect of means, moreover,
for meeting the expenses, whether for those who, having confessed their
Lord with a glorious voice, have been put in prison, or for those who are
labouring in poverty and want, and still stand fast in the Lord, I entreat
that nothing be wanting, since the whole of the small sum which was
collected there was distributed among the clergy for cases of that kind,
that many might have means whence they could assist the necessities and
burthens of individuals.

   2. I beg also that there may be no lack, on your parts, of wisdom and
carefulness to preserve peace. For although from their affection the
brethren are eager to approach and to visit those good confessors, on whom
by their glorious beginnings the divine consideration has already shed a
brightness, yet I think that this eagerness must be cautiously indulged,
and not in crowds,--not in numbers collected together at once', lest from
this very thing ill-will be aroused, and the means of access be denied, and
thus, while we insatiably wish for all, we lose all. Take counsel,
therefore, and see that this may be more safely managed with moderation, so
that the presbyters also, who there offer(3) with the confessors, may one
by one take turns with the deacons individually; because, by thus changing
the persons and varying the people that come together, suspicion is
diminished. For, meek and humble in all things, as befits the servants of
God, we ought to accommodate ourselves to the times, and to provide for
quietness, and to have regard to the people. I bid you, brethren, beloved
and dearly longed-for, always heartily farewell; and have me in
remembrance. Greet all the brotherhood. Victor the deacon, and those who
are with me, greet you.Farewell!

EPISTLE V.(4)

TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS.

ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THIS LETTER IS NEARLY THE SAME AS THAT OF THE
PRECEDING ONE, EXCEPT THAT THE WRITER DIRECTS THE CONFESSORS ALSO TO BE
ADMONISHED BY THE CLERGY OF THEIR DUTY, TO GIVE ATTENTION TO HUMILITY, AND
OBEY THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS. HIS OWN RETIREMENT INCIDENTALLY FURNISHES
AN OCCASION FOR THIS.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. I had
wished indeed, beloved brethren, with this my letter to greet the whole of
my clergy in health and safety. But since the stormy time which has in a
great measure overwhelmed my people, has, moreover, added this enhancement
to my sorrows, that it has touched with its desolation even a portion of
the clergy, I pray the Lord that, by the divine mercy, I may hereafter
greet you at all events as safe, who, as I have learned, stand fast both in
faith and virtue. And although some reasons might appear to urge me to the
duty of myself hastening to come to you, firstly, for instance, because of
my eagerness and desire for you, which is the chief consideration in my
prayers, and then, that we might be able to consult together on those
matters which are required by the general advantage, in respect of the
government of the Church, and having carefully examined them with abundant
counsel, might wisely arrange them;--yet it seemed to me better, still to
preserve my retreat and my quiet for a while, with a view to other
advantages connected with the peace and safety of us all:--which advantages
an account will be given you by our beloved brother Tertullus, who, besides
his other care which he zealously bestows on divine labours, was, moreover,
the author of this counsel; that I should be cautious and moderate, and not
rashly trust myself into the sight of the public; and especially that I
should beware of that place where I had been so often inquired for and
sought after.

   2. Relying, therefore, upon your love and your piety, which I have
abundantly known, in this letter I both exhort and command you, that those
of you whose presence there is least suspicious and least perilous, should
in my stead discharge my duty, in respect of doing those things which are
required for the religious administration. In the meantime let the poor be
taken care of as much and as well as possible; but especially those who
have stood with unshaken faith and have not forsaken Christ's flock, that,
by your diligence, means be supplied to them to enable them to bear their
poverty, so that what the troublous time has not effected in respect of
their faith, may not be accomplished by want in respect of their
afflictions. Let a more earnest care, moreover, be bestowed upon the
glorious confessors. And although I know that very many of those have been
maintained by the vow(1) and by the love of the brethren, yet if there be
any who are in want either of clothing or maintenance, let them be
supplied, with whatever things are necessary, as I formerly wrote to you,
while they were still kept in prison,--only let them know from you and be
instructed, and learn what, according to the authority of Scripture, the
discipline of the Church requires of them, that they ought to be humble and
modest and peaceable, that they should maintain the honour of their name,
so that those who have achieved glory by what they have testified, may
achieve glory also by their characters, and in all things seeking the
Lord's approval, may show themselves worthy, in consummation of their
praise, to attain a heavenly crown. For there remains more than what is yet
seen to be accomplished, since it is written "Praise not any man before his
death;"(2) and again, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a
crown of life."(3) And the Lord also says, "He that endureth to the end,
the same shall be saved."(4) Let them imitate the Lord, who at the very
time of His passion was not more proud, but more humble. For then He washed
His disciples' feet, saying, "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your
feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an
example, that ye should do as I have done to you."(5) Let them also follow
the example of the Apostle Paul, who, after often-repeated imprisonment,
after scourging, after exposures to wild beasts, in everything continued
meek and humble; and even after his rapture to the third heaven and
paradise, he did not proudly arrogate anything to himself when he said,
"Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought, but wrought with labour and
travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you."(6)

   3. These several matters, I pray you, suggest to our brethren. And as
"he who humbleth himself shall be exalted,"(7) now is the time when they
should rather fear the ensnaring adversary, who more eagerly attacks the
man that is strongest, and becoming more virulent, for the very reason that
he is conquered, strives to overcome his conqueror. The Lord grant that I
may soon both see them again, and by salutary exhortation may establish
their minds to preserve their glory. For I am grieved when I hear that some
of them run about wickedly and proudly, and give themselves up to follies
or to discords; that members of Christ, and even members that have
confessed Christ, are defiled by unlawful concubinage, and cannot be ruled
either by deacons or by presbyters, but cause that, by the wicked and evil
characters of a few,(8) the honourable glories of many and good confessors
are tarnished;(9) whom they ought to fear, lest, being condemned by their
testimony and judgment, they be excluded from their fellowship. That,
finally, is the illustrious and true confessor, concerning whom afterwards
the Church does not blush, but boasts.

   4. In respect of that which our fellow-presbyters, Donatus and
Fortunatus, Novatus and Cordius, wrote to me, I have not been able to reply
by myself, since, from the first commencement of my episcopacy, I made up
my mind to do nothing on my own private opinion, without your advice and
without the consent of the people.(10) But as soon as, by the grace of God,
I shall have come to you, then we will discuss in common, as our respective
dignity requires, those things which either have been or are to be done. I
bid you, brethren beloved and dearly longed-for, ever heartily farewell,
and be mindful of me. Greet the brotherhood that is with you earnestly from
me, and tell them to remember Inc.Farewell.

EPISTLE VI.(11)

TO ROGATIANUS THE PRESBYTER, AND THE OTHER CONFESSORS. A.D. 250.

ARGUMENT.--HE EXHORTS ROGATIANUS AND THE OTHER CONFESSORS TO MAINTAIN
DISCIPLINE, THAT NONE WHO HAD CONFESSED CHRIST IN WORD SHOULD SEEM TO DENY
HIM IN DEED; CASUALLY REBUKING SOME OF THEM, WHO, BEING EXILED ON ACCOUNT
OF THE FAITH, WERE NOT AFRAID TO RETURN UNBIDDEN INTO THEIR COUNTRY.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyter Rogatianus, and to the other confessors,
his brethren, greeting. I had both heretofore, dearly beloved and bravest
brethren, sent you a letter, in which I congratulated your faith and virtue
with exulting words, and now my voice has no other object, first of all,
than with joyous mind, repeatedly and always to announce the glory of your
name. For what can I wish greater or better in my prayers than to see the
flock of Christ enlightened by the honour of your confession? For although
all the brethren ought to rejoice in this, yet, in the common gladness, the
share of the bishop is the greatest. For the glory of the Church is the
glory of the bishop.(1) In proportion as we grieve over those whom a
hostile persecution has cast down, in the same proportion we rejoice over
you whom the devil has not been able to over-Conic.

   2. Yet I exhort you by our common faith, by the true and simple love of
my heart towards you, that, having overcome the adversary in this first
encounter, you should hold fast your glory with a brave and persevering
virtue. We are still in the world; we are still placed in the battle-field;
we fight daily for our lives. Care must be taken, that after such
beginnings as these there should also come an increase, and that what you
have begun to be with such a blessed commencement should be consummated in
you. It is a slight thing to have been able to attain anything; it is more
to be able to keep what you have attained; even as faith itself and saving
birth makes alive, not by being received, but by being preserved. Nor is it
actually the attainment, but the perfecting, that keeps a man for God. The
Lord taught this in His instruction when He said, "Behold, thou art made
whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."(2) Conceive of Him
as saying this also to His confessor, "Lo thou art made a confessor; sin no
more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." Solomon also, and Saul, and many
others, so long as they walked in the Lord's ways, were able to keep the
grace given to them. When the discipline of the Lord was forsaken by them,
grace also forsook them.

   3. We must persevere in the straight and narrow road of praise and
glory; and since peacefulness and humility and the tranquillity of a good
life is fitting for all Christians, according to the word of the Lord, who
looks to none other man than "to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit,
and that trembleth at"(3) His word, it the more behoves you confessors, who
have been made an example to the rest of the brethren, to observe and
fulfil this, as being those whose characters should provoke to imitation
the life and conduct of all. For as the Jews were alienated from God, as
those on whose account "the name of God is blasphemed among the
Gentiles,"(4) so on the other hand those are dear to God through whose
conformity to discipline the name of God is declared with a testimony of
praise, as it is written, the Lord Himself forewarning and saying, "Let
your light so shine before men that they may see your good works  and
glorify your Father which is in heaven."(5) And Paul the apostle says,
"Shine as lights in the world."(6) And similarly Peter exhorts: "As
strangers," says he, "and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war
against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that
whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works,
which they shall behold, glorify the Lord."(7) This, indeed, the greatest
part of you, I rejoice to say, are careful for; and, made better by the
honour of your confession itself, guard and preserve its glory by tranquil
and virtuous lives.

   4. But I hear that some infect your number, and destroy the praise of a
distinguished name by their corrupt conversation; whom you yourselves, even
as being lovers and guardians of your own praise, should rebuke and check
and correct. For what a disgrace is suffered by your name, when one spends
his days in intoxication and debauchery,(8) another returns to that country
whence he was banished, to perish when arrested, not now as being a
Christian, but as being a criminal!(9) I hear that some are puffed up and
are arrogant, although it is written, "Be not high-minded, but fear: for if
God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not
thee."(10) Our Lord "was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb
before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth."(11) "I am not
rebellious," says He, "neither do I gainsay. I gave my back to the smiters,
and my cheeks to the palms of their hands. I hid not my face from the
filthiness of spitting."(12) And dares any one now, who lives by and in
this very One, lift up himself and be haughty, forgetful, as well of the
deeds which He did, as of the commands which He left to us either by
Himself or by His apostles? But if "the servant is not greater than his
Lord."(13) let those who follow the Lord humbly and peacefully and silently
tread in His steps, since the lower one is, the more exalted be may become;
as says the Lord, "He that is least among you, the same shall be great."(1)

   5. What, then, is that--how execrable should it appear to you--which I
have learnt with extreme anguish and grief of mind, to wit, that there are
not wanting those who defile the temples of God, and the members sanctified
after confession and made glorious,(2) with a disgraceful and infamous
concubinage, associating their beds promiscuously with women's! In which,
even if there be no pollution of their conscience,  there is a great guilt
in this very thing, that by  their offence originate examples for the ruin
of Others.(3) There ought also to be no contentions and emulations among
you, since the Lord left to us His peace, and it is written, "Thou shall
love thy neighbour as thyself."(4) "But if ye bite and find fault with one
another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another."(5) From abuse
and revilings also I entreat you to abstain, for "revilers do not attain
the kingdom of God;"(6) and the tongue which has confessed Christ should be
preserved sound and pure with its honour. For he who, according to Christ's
precept, speaks things peaceable and good and just, daily confesses Christ.
We had renounced the world when we were baptized; but we have now indeed
renounced the world when tried and approved by God, we leave all that we
have, and have followed the Lord, and stand and live in His faith and fear.

   6. Let us confirm one another by mutual exhortations, and let us more
and more go forward in the Lord; so that when of His mercy He shall have
made that peace which He promises to give, we may return to the Church new
and almost changed men, and may be received, whether by our brethren or by
the heathen, in all things corrected and renewed for the better; and those
who formerly admired our glory in our courage may now admire the discipline
in our lives.(7) I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell; and
be mindful of me.

EPISTLE VII.(8)

TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING PRAYER TO GOD.

ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THE PRESENT EPISTLE IS NEARLY THE SAME AS THAT
OF THE TWO PRECEDING, EXCEPT THAT HE EXHORTS IN THIS TO DILIGENT PRAYER.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting.
Although I know, brethren beloved, that from the fear which we all of us
owe to God, you also are instantly urgent in continual petitions anti
earnest prayers to Him, still I myself remind your religious anxiety, that
in order to appease and entreat the Lord, we must lament not only in words,
but also with fastings and with tears, and with every kind of urgency. For
we must perceive and confess that the so disordered ruin arising from that
affliction, which has in a great measure laid waste, and is even still
laying waste, our flock, has visited us according to our sins, in that we
do not keep the way of the Lord, nor observe the heavenly commandments
given to us for our salvation. Our Lord did the will of His Father, and we
do not do the will of our Lord; eager about our patrimony and our gain,
seeking to satisfy our pride, yielding ourselves wholly to emulation and to
strife, careless of simplicity and faith, renouncing the world in words
only, and not in deeds, every one of us pleasing himself, and displeasing
all others,(9)--therefore we are smitten as we deserve, since it is
written: "And that servant, which knoweth his master's will, and has not
obeyed his will, shall be beaten with many stripes."(10) But what stripes,
what blows, do we not deserve, when even confessors, who ought to be an
example of virtuous life to others, do not maintain discipline? Therefore,
while an inflated and immodest boastfulness about their own confession
excessively elates some, tortures come upon them, and tortures without any
cessation of the tormentor, without any end of condetonation, without any
comfort of death,--tortures which do not easily let them pass to the crown,
but wrench them on the rack until they cause them to abandon their faith,
unless some one taken away by the divine compassion should  depart in the
very midst of the torments, gaining glory not by the cessation of his
torture, but by the quickness of his death:

   2. These things we suffer by our own fault and  our own deserving, even
as the divine judgment  has forewarned us, saying, "If they forsake my law
and walk not in my judgments, if they profane my statutes and keep not my
commandments, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and
their iniquities with stripes."(1) It is for this reason that we feel the
rods and the stripes, because we neither please God with good deeds nor
atone(2) for our sins. Let us of our inmost heart and of our entire mind
ask for God's mercy, because He Himself also adds, saying, "Nevertheless my
loving-kindness will I  not scatter away from them."(3) Let us ask, and  we
shall receive; and if there be delay and tardiness in our receiving, since
we have grievously offended, let us knock, because "to him that knocketh
also it shall be opened,"(4) if only our prayers, our groanings, and our
tears, knock at the door; and with these we must be urgent and persevering,
even although prayer be offered with one mind.(5)

   3. For,--which the more induced and constrained me to write this letter
to you,--you ought to know (since the Lord has condescended to show and to
reveal it) that it was said in a vision, "Ask, and ye shall obtain." Then,
afterwards, that the attending people were bidden to  pray for certain
persons pointed out to them, but that in their petitions there were
dissonant voices, and wills disagreeing, and that this excessively
displeased Him who had said, "Ask, and ye shall obtain," because the
disagreement of the people was out of harmony, and there was not a consent
of the brethren one and simple, and a united concord; since it is written,
"God who maketh men to be of one mind in a house;"(6) and we read in the
Acts of the Apostles, "And the multitude of them that believed were of one
heart and of one soul."(7) And the Lord has bidden us with His own voice,
saying, "This is my command, that ye love one another."(8) And again, "I
say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything
that you shall ask, it shall be done for you of my Father which is in
heaven."(9) But if two of one mind can do so much, what might be effected
if the unanimity prevailed among all? But if, according to the peace which
our Lord gave us, there were agreement among all brethren, we should before
this have obtained from the divine mercy what we seek; nor should we be
wavering so long in this peril of our salvation and our faith. Yes, truly,
and these evils would not have come upon the brethren, if the brotherhood
had been animated with one spirit.

   4. For there also was shown that there sate the father of a family, a
young man also being seated at his right hand, who, anxious and somewhat
sad with a kind of indignation, holding his chin in his right hand,
occupied his place with a sorrowful look. But another standing on the left
hand, bore a net, which he threatened to throw, in order to catch the
people standing round.(10) And when he who saw marvelled what this could
be, it was told him that the youth who was thus sitting on the right hand
was saddened and grieved because his commandments were not observed; but
that he on the left was exultant because an opportunity was afforded him of
receiving from the father of the family the power of destroying. This was
shown long before the tempest of this devastation arose. And we have seen
that which had been shown fulfilled; that while we despise the commandments
of the Lord, while we do not keep the salutary ordinances of the law that
He has given, the enemy was receiving a power of doing mischief, and was
overwhelming, by the cast of his net, those who were imperfectly armed and
too careless to resist.

   5. Let us urgently pray and groan with continual petitions. For know,
beloved brethren, that I was not long ago reproached with this also in a
vision, that we were sleepy in our prayers, and did not pray with
watchfulness; and undoubtedly God, who "rebukes whom He loves,(11) when He
rebukes, rebukes that He may amend, amends that He may preserve. Let us
therefore strike off and break away from the bonds of sleep, and pray with
urgency and watchfulness, as the Apostle Paul bids us, saying, "Continue in
prayer, and watch in the same."(12) For the apostles also ceased not to
pray day and night; and the Lord also Himself, the teacher of our
discipline, and the way of our example, frequently and watch-fully prayed,
as we read in the Gospel: "He went out into a mountain to pray, and
continued all night in prayer to God."(13) And assuredly what He prayed
for, He prayed for on our behalf, since He was not a sinner, but bore the
sins of others. But He so prayed for us, that in another place we read,
"And the Lord said to Peter, Behold, Satan has desired to sift you as
wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."(14) But if for
us and for our sins He both laboured and watched and prayed, how much more
ought we to be instant in prayers; and, first of all, to pray and to
entreat the Lord Himself, and then through Him, to make satisfaction to God
the Father! We have an advocate and an intercessor for our sins, Jesus
Christ the Lord and our God, if only we repent of our sins past, and
confess and acknowledge our sins, whereby we now offend the Lord, and for
the time to come engage to walk in His ways, and to fear His commandments.
The Father corrects and protects us, if we still stand fast in the faith
both in afflictions and perplexities, that is to say, cling closely to His
Christ; as it is written, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness, or
peril, or sword?(1) None of these things can separate believers, nothing
can tear away those who are clinging to His body and blood. Persecution of
that kind is an examination and searching out of the heart. God wills us to
be sifted and proved, as He has always proved His people; and yet in His
trials help has never at any time been wanting to believers.

   6. Finally, to the very least of His servants although placed among
very many sins, and unworthy of His condescension, yet He has condescended
of His goodness towards us to command:(2) "Tell him," said He, "to be safe,
because peace is coming; but that, in the meantime, there is a little
delay, that some who still remain may be proved." But we are admonished by
these divine condescensions both concerning a spare diet and a temperate
use of drink; to wit, lest worldly enticement should enervate the breast
now elevated with celestial vigour, or lest the mind, weighed down by too
abundant feasting, should be less watchful unto prayers and supplication.

   7. It was my duty not to conceal these special matters, nor to hide
them alone in my own consciousness,--matters by which each one of us may be
both instructed and guided. And do not you for your part keep this letter
concealed among yourselves, but let the brethren have it to mad. For it is
the part of one who desires that his brother should not be warned and
instructed, to intercept those words with which the Lord condescends to
admonish and instruct us. Let them know that we are proved by our Lord, and
let them never fail of that faith whereby we have once believed in Him,
under the conflict of this present affliction. Let each one, acknowledging
his own sins, even now put off the conversation of the old man. "For no man
who looks back as he putteth his hand to the plough is fit for the kingdom
of God."(3) And, finally, Lot's wife, who, when she was delivered, looked
back in defiance of the commandment, lost the benefit of her escape.(4) Let
us look not to things which are behind, whither the devil calls us back,
but to things which are before, whither Christ calls us. Let us lift up our
eyes to heaven, lest the earth with its delights and enticements deceive
us. Let each one of us pray God not for himself only, but for all the
brethren, even as the Lord has taught us to pray, when He bids to each one,
not private prayer, but enjoined them, when they prayed, to pray for all in
common prayer and concordant supplication.(5) If the Lord shall behold us
humble and peaceable; if He shall see us joined one with another; if He
shall see us fearful concerning His anger; if corrected and amended by the
present tribulation, He will maintain us safe from the disturbances of the
enemy. Discipline hath preceded; pardon also shall follow.

   8. Let us only, without ceasing to ask, and with full faith that we
shall receive, in simplicity and unanimity beseech the Lord, entreating not
only with groaning but with tears, as it behoves those to entreat who are
situated between the ruins of those who wail, and the remnants of those who
fear; between the manifold slaughter of the yielding, and the little
firmness of those who still stand. Let us ask that peace may be soon
restored; that we may be quickly helped in our concealments and our
dangers; that those things may be fulfilled which the Lord deigns to show
to his servants,--the restoration of the Church, the security of our
salvation; after the rains, serenity; after the darkness, light; after the
storms and whirlwinds, a peaceful calm; the affectionate aids of paternal
love, the accustomed grandeurs of the divine majesty whereby both the
blasphemy of persecutors may be restrained, the repentance of the lapsed
renewed, and the stedfast faith of the persevering may glory. I bid you,
beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell; and have me in remembrance.
Salute the brotherhood in my name; and remind them to remember me.
Farewell.

EPISTLE VIII.(6)

TO THE MARTYRS AND CONFESSORS.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN, COMMENDING THE AFRICAN MARTYRS MARVELLOUSLY FOR THEIR
CONSTANCY, URGES THEM TO PERSEVERANCE BY THE EXAMPLE OF THEIR COLLEAGUE
MAPPALICUS.

   Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors in Christ our Lord and in God the
Father, everlasting salvation. I gladly rejoice and am thankful, most brave
and blessed brethren, at hearing of your faith and virtue, wherein the
Church, our Mother, glories. Lately, indeed, she gloried, when, in
consequence of an enduring confession, that punishment was undergone which
drove the confessors of Christ into exile; yet the present confession is so
much the more illustrious and greater in honour as it is braver in
suffering. The combat has increased, and the glory of the combatants has
increased also. Nor were you kept back from the struggle by fear of
tortures, but by the very tortures themselves you were more and more
stimulated to the conflict; bravely and firmly you have returned with ready
devotion, to contend in the extremest contest. Of you I find that some are
already crowned, while some are even now within reach of the crown of
victory; but all whom the danger has shut up in a glorious company are
animated to carry on the struggle with an equal and common warmth of
virtue, as it behoves the soldiers of Christ in the divine camp: that no
allurements may deceive the incorruptible stedfastness of your faith, no
threats terrify you, no sufferings or tortures overcome you, because
"greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world;"(1) nor is the
earthly punishment able to do more towards casting down, than is the divine
protection towards lifting up. This truth is proved by the glorious
struggle of the brethren, who, having become leaders to the rest in
overcoming their tortures, afforded an example of virtue and faith,
contending in the strife, until the strife yielded, being overcome. With
what praises can I commend you, most courageous brethren? With what vocal
proclamation can I extol the strength of your heart and the perseverance of
your faith? You have borne the sharpest examination by torture, even unto
the glorious consummation, and have not yielded to sufferings, but rather
the sufferings have given way to you. The end of torments, which the
tortures themselves did not give, the crown has given. The examination by
torture waxing severer, continued for a long time to this result, not to
overthrow the stedfast faith, but to send the men of God more quickly to
the Lord. The multitude of those who were present saw with admiration the
heavenly contest,--the contest of God, the spiritual contest, the battle of
Christ,--saw that His servants stood with free voice, with unyielding mind,
with divine virtue--bare, indeed, of weapons of this world, but believing
and armed with the weapons of faith. The tortured stood more brave than the
torturers; and the limbs, beaten and torn as they were, overcame the hooks
that bent and tore them. The scourge, often repeated with all its rage,
could not conquer invincible faith, even although the membrane which
enclosed the entrails were broken, and it was no longer the limbs but the
wounds of the servants of God that were tortured. Blood was flowing which
might quench the blaze of persecution, which might subdue the flames of
Gehenna with its glorious gore.(2) Oh, what a spectacle was that to the
Lord,--how sublime, how great, how acceptable to the eyes of God in the
allegiance and devotion of His soldiers! As it is written in the Psalms,
when the Holy Spirit at once speaks to us and warns us: "Precious in the
sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."(3) Precious is the death
which has bought immortality at the cost of its blood, which has received
the crown from the consummation of its virtues. How did Christ rejoice
therein! How willingly did He both fight and conquer in such servants of
His, as the protector of their faith, and giving to believers as much as he
who taketh believes that he receives! He was present at His own contest; He
lifted up, strengthened, animated the champions and assertors of His name.
And He who once conquered death on our behalf, always conquers it in us.
"When they," says He, "deliver you up, take no thought what ye shall speak:
for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. For it is not
ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you."(4) The
present struggle has afforded a proof of this saying. A voice filled with
the Holy Spirit broke forth from the martyr's mouth when the most blessed
Mappalicus said to the proconsul in the midst of his torments, "You shall
see a contest to-morrow." And that which he said with the testimony of
virtue and faith, the Lord fulfilled. A heavenly contest was exhibited, and
the servant of God was crowned ill the struggle of the promised fight. This
is the contest which the prophet Isaiah of old predicted, saying, "It shall
be no light contest for you with men, since God appoints the struggle."(5)
And in order to show what this struggle would be, he added the words,
"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and ye shall call His name
Emmanuel."(6) This is the struggle of our faith in which we engage, in
which we conquer, in which we are crowned. This is the struggle which the
blessed Apostle Paul has shown to us, in which it behoves us to run and to
attain the crown of glory. "Do ye not know," says he, "that they which run
in a race, run all indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may
obtain." "Now they do it that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we
an incorruptible."(7) Moreover, setting forth his own struggle, and
declaring that he himself should soon be a sacrifice for the Lord's sake,
he says, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my assumption is at
hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept
the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to
me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing."(1) This fight,
therefore, predicted of old by the prophets, begun by the Lord, waged by
the apostles, Mappalicus promised again to the proconsul in his own name
and that of his colleagues. Nor did the faithful voice deceive in his
promise; he exhibited the fight to which he had pledged himself, and he
received the reward which he deserved. I not only beseech but exhort the
rest of you, that you all should follow that martyr now most blessed, and
the other partners of that engagement,--soldiers and comrades, stedfast in
faith, patient in suffering, victors in tortures,--that those who are
united at once by the bond of confession, and the entertainment of a
dungeon, may also be united in the consummation of their virtue and a
celestial crown; that you by your joy may dry the tears of our Mother, the
Church, who mourns over the wreck and death of very many; and that you may
confirm, by the provocation of your example, the stedfastness of others who
stand also. If the battle shall call you out, if the day of your contest
shall come engage bravely, fight with constancy, as knowing that you are
fighting under the eyes of a present Lord, that you are attaining by the
confession of His name to His own glory; who is not such a one as that He
only looks on His servants, but He Himself also wrestles in us, Himself is
engaged,--Himself also in the struggles of our conflict not only crowns,
but is crowned. But if before the day of your contest, of the mercy of God,
peace shall supervene, let there still remain to you the sound will and the
glorious conscience.(2) Nor let any one of you be saddened as if he were
inferior to those who before you have suffered tortures, have overcome the
world and trodden it under foot, and so have come to the Lord by a glorious
road. For the Lord is the "searcher out of the reins and the hearts."(3) He
looks through secret things, and beholds that which is concealed. In order
to merit the crown from Him, His own testimony alone is sufficient, who
will judge us. Therefore, beloved brethren, either case is equally lofty
and illustrious,--the former more secure, to wit, to hasten to the Lord
with the consummation of our victory,--the latter more joyous; a leave of
absence, after glory, being received to flourish in the praises of the
Church. O blessed Church of ours, which the honour of the divine
condescension illuminates, Which in our own times the glorious blood of
martyrs renders illustrious! She was white before in the works of the
brethren; now she has become purple in the blood of the martyrs. Among her
flowers are wanting neither roses nor lilies. Now let each one strive for
the largest dignity of either honour. Let them receive crowns, either
white, as of labours, or of purple, as of suffering. In the heavenly camp
both peace and strife have their own flowers, with which the soldier of
Christ may be crowned for glory. I bid you, most brave and beloved
brethren, always heartily farewell in the Lord; and have me in
remembrance.Fare ye well.

EPISTLE IX.(4)

TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING CERTAIN PRESBYTERS WHO HAD RASHLY GRANTED PEACE
TO THE LAPSED BEFORE THE PERSECUTION HAD BEEN APPEASED, AND WITHOUT THE
PRIVITY OF THE BISHOPS.

ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THIS EPISTLE IS CONTAINED IN THE FOLLOWING WORDS
OF THE XIVTH EPISTLE:--"TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS," HE SAYS, "WAS NOT
WANTING THE VIGOUR OF THE PRIESTHOOD, SO THAT SOME, TOO LITTLE MINDFUL OF
DISCIPLINE, AND HASTY WITH A RASH PRECIPITATION, WHO HAD ALREADY BEGUN TO
COMMUNICATE WITH THE LAPSED, WERE CHECKED."

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. I
have long been patient, beloved brethren, hoping that my forbearing silence
would avail to quietness. But since the unreasonable and reckless
presumption of some is seeking by its boldness to disturb both the honour
of the martyrs, and the modesty of the confessors, and the tranquility of
the whole people, it behoves me no longer to keep silence, lest too much
reticence should issue in danger both to the people and to ourselves. For
what danger ought we not to fear from the Lord's displeasure, when some of
the presbyters, remembering neither the Gospel nor their own place, and,
moreover, considering neither the Lord's future judgment nor the bishop now
placed over them, claim to themselves entire authority,(5)--a thing which
was never in any wise done under our predecessors,--with discredit and
contempt of the bishop?

   2. And I wish, if it could be so without the sacrifice of our
brethren's safety, that they could make good their claim to all things; I
could dissemble and bear the discredit of my episcopal authority, as I
always have dissembled and borne it. But it is not now the occasion for
dissimulating when our brotherhood is deceived by some of you, who, while
without the means of restoring salvation they desire to please, become a
still greater stumbling-block to the lapsed, For that it is a very great
crime which persecution has compelled to be committed, they themselves know
who have committed it; since our Lord and Judge has said, "Whosoever shall
confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in
heaven; but whosoever shall deny me, him will I also deny."(1) And again He
has said, "All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and
blasphemies; but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost shall not
have forgiveness, but is guilty of eternal sin."(2) Also the blessed
apostle has said, "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of
devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of
devils."(3) He who withholds these words from our brethren deceives them,
wretched that they are; so that they who truly repenting might satisfy God,
both as the Father and as merciful, with their prayers and works, are
seduced more deeply to perish; and they who might raise themselves up fall
the more deeply. For although in smaller sins sinners may do penance for a
set time, and according to the rules of discipline come to public
confession,(4) and by imposition of the hand of the bishop and clergy
receive the right of communion: now with their time still unfulfilled,
while persecution is still raging, while the peace of the Church itself is
not vet restored, they are admitted to communion, and their name is
presented; and while the penitence is not yet performed, confession is not
yet made, the hands Of the bishop and clergy are not yet laid upon them,
the eucharist is given to them; although it is written, "Whosoever shall
eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of
the body and blood of the Lord."(5)

   3. But now they are not guilty who so little observe the law of
Scripture; but they will be guilty who are in office and do not suggest
these things to brethren, so that, being instructed by those placed above
them, they may do all things with the fear of God, and with the observance
given and prescribed by Him. Then, moreover, they lay the blessed martyrs
open to ill-will, and involve the glorious servants of God with the priest
of God; so that although they, mindful of my place, have directed letters
to me, and have asked that their wishes should theft be examined, and peace
granted them,--when our Mother, the Church herself, should first have
received peace for the Lord's mercy, and the divine protection. have
brought me back to His Church,--yet these, disregarding the honour which
the blessed martyrs with the confessors maintain for me, despising the
Lord's law and that observance, which the same martyrs and confessors bid
to be maintained, before the fear of persecution is quenched, before my
return, almost even before the departure of the martyrs, communicate with
the lapsed, and offer and give them the eucharist: when even if the
martyrs, in the heat of their glory, were to consider less carefully the
Scriptures, and to desire anything more, they should be admonished by the
presbyters' and deacons' suggestions, as was always done in time past.(6)

   4. For this reason the divine rebuke does not cease to chastise us
night nor day. For besides the visions of the night, by day also, the
innocent age of boys is among us filled with the Holy Spirit, seeing in an
ecstasy with their eyes, and hearing and speaking those things whereby the
Lord condescends to warn and instruct us.(7) And you shall hear all things
when the Lord, who bade me withdraw, shall bring me back again to you. In
the meanwhile, let those certain ones among you who are rash and incautious
and boastful, and who do not regard man, at least fear God, knowing that,
if they shall persevere still in the same course, I shall use that power of
admonition which the Lord bids me use; so that they may meanwhile be
withheld from offering,(8) and have to plead their cause both before me and
before the confessors themselves and before the whole people, when, with
God's permission, we begin to be gathered together once more into the bosom
of the Church, our Mother. Concerning this matter, I have written to the
martyrs and confessors, and to the people, letters; both of which I have
bidden to be read to you. I wish you, dearly beloved brethren and earnestly
longed-for, ever heartily farewell in the Lord; and have me in remembrance.
Fare ye well.

EPISTLE X.(9)

TO THE MARTYRS AND CONFESSORS WHO SOUGHT THAT PEACE SHOULD BE GRANTED TO
THE LAPSED.

ARGUMENT.--THE OCCASION OF THIS LETTER IS GIVEN BELOW IN EPISTLE XIV. AS
FOLLOWS:-"WHEN I FOUND THAT THOSE WHO HAD POLLUTED THEIR HANDS AND MOUTHS
WITH SACRILEGIOUS CONTACT, OR HAD NO LESS INFECTED THEIR CONSCIENCE WITH
WICKED CERTIFICATES," ETC.(1)

   1. Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors, his beloved brethren,
greeting. The anxiety of my situation and the fear of the Lord constrain
me, my brave and beloved brethren, to admonish you in my letters, that
those who so devotedly and bravely maintain the faith of the Lord should
also maintain the law and discipline of the Lord. For while it behoves all
Christ's soldiers to keep the precepts of their commander; to you it is
more especially fitting that you should obey His precepts, inasmuch as you
have been made an example to others, both of valour and of the fear of God.
And I had indeed believed that the presbyters and deacons who are there
present with you would admonish and instruct you more fully concerning the
law of the Gospel, as was the case always in time past under my
predecessors; so that the deacons passing in and out of the prison
controlled the wishes of the martyrs by their counsels, and by the
Scripture precepts. But now, with great sorrow of mind, I gather that not
only the divine precepts are not suggested to you by them, but that they
are even rather restrained, so that those things which are done by you
yourselves, both in respect of God with caution, and in respect of God's
priest(2) with honour, are relaxed by certain presbyters, who consider
neither the fear of God nor the honour of the bishop. Although you sent
letters to me in which you ask that your wishes should be examined, and
that peace should be granted to certain of the lapsed as soon as with the
end of the persecution we should have begun to meet with our clergy, and to
be gathered together once more; those presbyters, contrary to the Gospel
law, contrary also to your respectful petition, before penitence was
fulfilled, before confession even of the gravest and most heinous sin was
made, before hands were placed upon the repentant by the bishops and
clergy, dare to offer on their behalf, and to give them the eucharist, that
is, to profane the sacred body of the Lord, although it is written,
"Whosoever shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."(3)

   2. And to the lasped indeed pardon may be granted in respect of this
thing. For what dead person would not hasten to be made alive? Who would
not be eager to attain to his own salvation? But it is the duty of those
placed over them to keep the ordinance, and to instruct those that are
either hurrying or ignorant, that those who ought to be shepherds of the
sheep may not become their butchers. For to concede those things which tend
to destruction is to deceive. Nor is the lapsed raised in this manner, but,
by offending God, he is more urged on to ruin. Let them learn, therefore,
even from you, what they ought to have taught; let them reserve your
petitions and wishes for the bishops,(4) and let them wait for ripe and
peaceable times to give peace at your requests. The first thing is, that
the Mother should first receive peace from the Lord, and then, in
accordance with your wishes, that the peace of her children should be
considered.

   3. And since I hear, most brave and beloved brethren, that you are
pressed by the shamelessness of some, and that your modesty suffers
violence; I beg you with what entreaties I may, that, as mindful of the
Gospel, and considering what and what sort of things in past time your
predecessors the martyrs conceded, how careful they were in all respects,
you also should anxiously and cautiously weigh the wishes of those who
petition you, since, as friends of the Lord, and hereafter to exercise
judgment with Him, you must inspect both the conduct and the doings and the
deserts of each one. You must consider also the kinds and qualities of
their sins, lest, in the event of anything being abruptly and unworthily
either promised by you or done by me, our Church(5) should begin to blush,
even before the very Gentiles. For we are visited and chastened frequently,
and we are admonished, that the commandments of the Lord may be kept
without corruption or violation, which I find does not cease to be the case
there among you so as to prevent the divine judgment from instructing very
many of you also in the discipline of the Church. Now this can all be done,
if you will regulate those things that are asked of you with a careful
consideration of religion, perceiving and restraining those who, by
accepting persons, either make favours in distributing your benefits, or
seek to make a profit of an unlawful trade.

   4. Concerning this I have written both to the clergy and to the people,
both of which letters I have directed to be read to you. But you ought also
to bring back and amend that matter according to your diligence, in such a
way as to designate those by name to whom you desire that peace should be
granted. For I hear that certificates are so given to some as that it is
said, "Let such a one be received to communion along with his friends,"
which was never in any case done by the martyrs so that a vague and blind
petition should by and by heap reproach upon us. For it opens a wide door
to say, "Such a one with his friends;" and twenty or thirty or more, may be
presented to us, who may be asserted to be neighbours and connections, and
freedmen and servants, of the man who receives the certificate. And for
this reason I beg you that you will designate by name in the certificate
those whom you yourselves see, whom you have known, whose penitence you see
to be very near to full satisfaction, and so direct to us letters in
conformity with faith and discipline. I bid you, very brave and beloved
brethren, ever heartily in the Lord farewell; and have me in remembrance.
Fare ye well.

EPISTLE XI.(1)

TO THE PEOPLE.

ARGUMENT.--THE SUBSTANCE OF THIS LETTER IS ALSO SUGGESTED IN EPISTLE XIV,
"AMONG THE PEOPLE ALSO," HE SAYS, "I HAVE DONE WHAT I COULD TO QUIET THEIR
MINDS, AND HAVE INSTRUCTED THEM TO BE RETAINED IN ECCLESIASTICAL
DISCIPLINE."

   1. Cyprian to his brethren among the people who stand fast,(2)
greeting. That you bewail and grieve over the downfall of our brethren I
know from myself, beloved brethren, who also bewail with you and grieve for
each one, and suffer and feel what the blessed apostle said: "Who is weak,"
said he, "and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?"(3) And again
he has laid it down in his epistle, saying, "Whether one member suffer, all
the members suffer with it; or one member rejoice, all the members rejoice
with it."(4) I sympathize with you in your suffering and grief, therefore,
for our brethren, who, having lapsed and fallen prostrate under the
severity of the persecution, have inflicted a like pain on us by their
wounds, inasmuch as they tear away part of our bowels with them,--to these
the divine mercy is able to bring healing. Yet I do not think that there
must be any haste, nor that anything must be done incautiously and
immaturely, lest, while peace is grasped at, the divine indignation be more
seriously incurred. The blessed martyrs have written to me about certain
persons, requesting that their wishes may be examined into. When, as soon
as peace is given to us all by the Lord, we shall begin to return to the
Church, then the wishes of each one shall be looked into in your presence,
and with your judgment.(5)

   2. Yet I hear that certain of the presbyters, neither mindful of the
Gospel nor considering what the martyrs have written to me, nor reserving
to the bishop the honour of his priesthood and of his dignity, have already
begun to communicate with the lapsed, and to offer on their behalf, and to
give them the eucharist, when it was fitting that they should attain to
these things in due course. For, as in smaller sins which are not committed
against God, penitence may be fulfilled in a set time, and confession may
be made with investigation of the life of him who fulfils the penitence,
and no one can come to communion unless the hands of the bishop and clergy
be first imposed upon him; how much more ought all such matters as these to
be observed with caution and moderation, according to the discipline of the
Lord, in these gravest and extremest sins! This warning, indeed, our
presbyters and deacons ought to have given you, that they might cherish the
sheep committed to their care, and by the divine authority might instruct
them in the way of obtaining salvation by prayer. I am aware of the
peacefulness as well as the fear of our people, who would be watchful in
the satisfaction and the deprecation of God's anger, unless some of the
presbyters, by way of gratifying them, had deceived them.

   3. Even you, therefore, yourselves, guide them each one, and control
the minds of the lapsed by counsel and by your own moderation, according to
the divine precepts. Let no one pluck the unripe fruit at a time as yet
premature. Let no one commit his ship, shattered and broken with the waves,
anew to the deep, before he has carefully repaired it. Let none be in haste
to accept and to put on a rent tunic, unless he has seen it mended by a
skilful workman. and has received it arranged by the fuller. Let them bear
with patience my advice, I beg. Let them look for my return, that when by
God's mercy I come to you, I, with many of my co-bishops, being called
together according to the Lord's discipline,(6) and in the presence of the
confessors, and with your opinion also, may be able to examine the letters
and the wishes of the blessed martyrs. Concerning this matter I have
written both to the clergy and to the martyrs and confessors, both of which
letters I have directed to be read to you. I bid you, brethren beloved and
most longed-for, ever heartily farewell in the Lord; and have me in
remembrance. Fare ye well.

EPISTLE XII.(1)

TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING THE LAPSED AND CATECHUMENS, THAT THEY SHOULD NOT
BE LEFT WITHOUT SUPERINTENDENCE.

ARGUMENT.--THE BURDEN OF THIS LETTER, AS OF THE SUCCEEDING ONE, IS FOUND
BELOW IN THE XIVTH EPISTLE. "BUT AFTERWARDS," HE SAYS, "WHEN SOME OF THE
LAPSED, WHETHER OF THEIR OWN ACCORD, OR BY THE SUGGESTION OF ANY OTHER,
BROKE FORTH WITH A DARING DEMAND, AS THOUGH THEY WOULD ENDEAVOUR, BY A
VIOLENT EFFORT, TO EXTORT THE PEACE THAT HAD BEEN PROMISED TO THEM BY THE
MARTYRS AND CONFESSORS," ETC.(2)

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. I
marvel, beloved brethren, that you have answered nothing to me in reply to
my many letters which I have frequently written to you, although as well
the advantage as the need of our brotherhood would certainly be best
provided for if, receiving information from you, I could accurately
investigate and advise upon the management of affairs. Since, however, I
see that there is not yet any Opportunity of coming to you, and that the
summer has already begun--a season that is disturbed with continual and
heavy sicknesses,--I think that our brethren must be dealt with;--that they
who have received certificates from the martyrs, and may be assisted by
their privilege with God, if they should be seized with any misfortune and
peril of sickness, should, without waiting for my presence, before any
presbyter who might be present, or if a presbyter should not be found and
death begins to be imminent, before even a deacon, be able to make
confession of their sin, that, with the imposition of hands upon them for
repentance, they should come to the Lord with the peace which the martyrs
have desired, by their letters to us, to be granted to them.(3)

   2. Cherish also by your presence the rest of the people who are lapsed,
and cheer them by your consolation, that they may not fail of the faith and
of God's mercy. For those shall not be forsaken by the aid and assistance
of the Lord, who meekly, humbly, and with true penitence   have persevered
in good works; but the divine, remedy will be granted to them also. To the
hearers(4) also, if there are any overtaken by   danger, and placed near to
death, let your vigilance not be wanting; let not the mercy of the Lord be
denied to those that are imploring the divine favour.(5) I bid you, beloved
brethren, ever heartily farewell; and remember me. Greet the whole
brotherhood in my name, and remind them and ask them to be mindful of me.
Fare ye well.

EPISTLE XIII.(6)

TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING THOSE WHO ARE IN HASTE TO RECEIVE PEACE. A.D.
250.

ARGUMENT.--PEACE MUST BE ATTAINED THROUGH PENITENCE, AND PENITENCE IS
REALIZED BY  KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS. THEY WHO ARE OPPRESSED WITH
SICKNESS,IF THEY ARE  RELIEVED BY THE SUFFRAGES OF THE MARTYRS, MAY BE
ADMITTED TO PEACE; BUT OTHERS ARE TO BE KEPT BACK UNTIL THE PEACE OF THE
CHURCH IS SECURED.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. I
have read your letter, beloved brethren, wherein you wrote that your
wholesome counsel was not wanting to our brethren, that, laying aside all
rash haste, they should manifest a religious patience to God, so that when
by His mercy we come together, we may debate upon all kinds of things,
according to the discipline of the Church, especially since it is written,
"Remember from whence thou hast fallen, and repent."(7) Now he repents,
who, remembering the divine precept, with meekness and patience, and
obeying the priests of God, deserves well of the Lord by his obedience and
his righteous works.

   2. Since, however, you intimate that some are petulant, and eagerly
urge their being received to communion, and have desired in this matter
that some rule should be given by me to you, I think I have sufficiently
written on this subject in the last letter that was sent to you, that they
who have received a certificate froth the martyrs, and can be assisted by
their help with the Lord in respect of their sins, if they begin to be
oppressed with any sickness or risk; when they have made confession, and
have received the imposition of hands on them by you in acknowledgment of
their penitence, should be remitted to the Lord with the peace promised to
them by the martyrs. But others who, without having received any
certificate from the martyrs, are envious(8) (since this is the cause not
of a few, nor of one church, nor of one province, but of the whole world),
must wait, in dependence on the protection of the Lord, for the public
peace of the Church itself. For this is suitable to the modesty and the
discipline, and even the life of all of us, that the chief officers meeting
together with the clergy in the presence also of the people who stand fast,
to whom themselves, moreover, honour is to be shown for their faith and
fear, we may be able to order all things with the religiousness of a common
consultation.(1) But how irreligious is it, and mischievous, even to those
themselves who are eager, that while such as are exiles, and driven from
their country, and   spoiled of all their property, have not yet returned
to the Church, some of the lapsed should be hasty to anticipate even
confessors themselves, and to enter into the Church before them! If they
are so over-anxious, they have what they require in their own power, the
times themselves offering them freely more than they ask. The struggle is
still going forward, and the strife is daily celebrated. If they truly and
with constancy repent of what they have done, and the fervour of their
faith prevails, he who cannot be delayed may be crowned.(2) I bid you,
beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell; and have me in remembrance. Greet
all the brotherhood in my name, and tell them to be mindful of me. Fare ye
well.

EPISTLE XIV.(3)

TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ASSEMBLED AT ROME. ARGUMENT.--HE GIVES AN
ACCOUNT OF HIS  WITHDRAWAL AND OF THE THINGS WHICH HE DID THEREIN, HAVING
SENT TO ROME FOR HIS JUSTIFICATION, COPIES OF THE LETTERS WHICH HE HAD
WRITTEN TO HIS PEOPLE; NAY, HE MAKES USE OF THE SAME WORDS WHICH HE HAD
EMPLOYED IN THEM.(4)

   1. Cyprian to his brethren the presbyters and deacons assembled at
Rome, greeting. Having   ascertained, beloved brethren, that what I have
done and am doing has been told to you in a  somewhat garbled and
untruthful manner, I have   thought it necessary to write this letter to
yon,   wherein I might give an account to you of my doings, my discipline,
and my diligence; for, as the Lord's commands teach, immediately the  first
burst of the disturbance arose, and the people with violent clamour
repeatedly demanded  me, I, taking into consideration not so much my own
safety as the public peace of the brethren, withdrew for a while, lest, by
my over-bold presence, the tumult which had begun might be still further
provoked. Nevertheless, although absent in body, I was not wanting either
in spirit, or in act, or in my advice, so as to fail in any benefit that I
could afford my brethren by my counsel, acccording to the Lord's precepts,
in anything that my poor abilities enabled me.

   2. And what I did, these thirteen letters sent  forth at various times
declare to you, which I have transmitted to you; in which neither counsel
to the clergy, nor exhortation to the confessors, nor rebuke, when it was
necessary, to the exiles, nor my appeals and persuasions to the whole
brotherhood, that they should entreat the mercy of God, were wanting to the
full extent that, according to the law of faith and the fear of God, with
the Lord's help, nay poor abilities could endeavour. But afterwards, when
tortures came, my words reached both to our tortured brethren and to those
who as yet were only imprisoned with a view to torture, to strengthen and
console them. Moreover, when I found that those who had polluted their
hands and mouths with sacrilegious contact, or had no less infected their
consciences with wicked certificates, were everywhere soliciting the
martyrs, and were also corrupting the confessors with importunate and
excessive entreaties, so that, without any discrimination or examination of
the individuals themselves, thousands of certificates were daily given,
contrary to the law of the Gospel, I wrote letters in which I recalled by
my advice, as much as possible, the martyrs and confessors to the Lord's
commands. To the presbyters and deacons also was not wanting the vigour of
the priesthood;(5) so that some, too little mindful of discipline, and
hasty, with a rash precipitation, who had already begun to communicate with
the lapsed, were restrained by my interposition. Among the people,
moreover, I have done what I could to quiet their minds, and have
instructed them to maintain ecclesiastical discipline.

   3. But afterwards, when some of the lapsed, whether of their own
accord, or by the suggestion of any other, broke forth with a daring
demand, as though they would endeavour by a violent effort to extort the
peace that had been promised to them by the martyrs and confessors;
concerning this also I wrote twice to the clergy, and commanded it to be
read to them; that for the mitigation of their violence in any manner for
the meantime, if any who had received a certificate from the martyrs were
departing from this life, having made confession, and received the
imposition of hands on them for repentance, they should be remitted to the
Lord with the peace promised them by the martyrs. Nor in this did I give
them a law, or rashly constitute myself the author of the direction; but as
it seemed fit both that honour should be paid to the martyrs, and that the
vehemence of those who were anxious to disturb everything should be
restrained; and when, besides, I had read your letter which you lately
wrote hither to my clergy by Crementius the sub-deacon, to the effect that
assistance should be given to those who might, after their lapse, be seized
with sickness, and might penitently desire communion; I judged it well to
stand by your judgment, lest our proceedings, which ought to be united and
to agree in all things, should in any respect be different.(1) The cases of
the rest, even although they might have received certificates from the
martyrs, I ordered altogether to be put off, and to be reserved till I
should be present, that so, when the Lord has given to us peace, and
several bishops shall have begun to assemble into one place, we may be able
to arrange and reform everything, having the advantage also of your
counsel. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XV.(2)

TO MOYSES AND MAXIMUS, AND THE REST OF THE CONFESSORS.

ARGUMENT.--THE BURDEN OF THIS LETTER IS GIVEN IN EPISTLE XXXI. BELOW, WHERE
THE ROMAN CLERGY SAY: "ON WHICH SUBJECT WE OWE YOU, AND GIVE YOU OUR
DEEPEST AND ABUNDANT THANKS, THAT YOU THREW LIGHT INTO THE GLOOM OF THEIR
PRISON BY YOUR LETTERS."(3)

   1. Cyprian to Moyses and Maximus, the presbyters and the other
confessors, his brethren, greeting. Celerinus, a companion both of your
faith and virtue, and God's soldier in glorious engagements, has come to
me, beloved brethren, and represented all of you, as well as each
individual, forcibly to my affection. I beheld in him, when he came, the
whole of you; and when he spoke sweetly and often of your love to me, in
his words I heard you. I rejoice very greatly when such things are brought
to me from you by such men as he. In a certain manner I am also there with
you in prison. I think that I who am thus bound to your hearts, enjoy with
you the delights of the divine approval. Your individual love associates me
with your honour; the Spirit does not allow our love to be separated.
Confession(4) shuts you up in prison; affection shuts me up there. And I
indeed, remembering   you day and night, both when in the sacrifices I
offer prayer with many, and when in retirement   I pray with private
petition, beseech of the Lord   a full acknowledgment to your crowns and
your   praises. But my poor ability is too weak to recompense you; you give
more when you remember me in prayer, since, already breathing only
celestial things, and meditating only divine    things, you ascend to
loftier heights, even by the   delay of your suffering; and by the long
lapse   of time, are not wasting, but increasing your  glory. A first and
single confession makes  blessed; you confess as often as, when asked to
retire from prison, you prefer the prison with faith and virtue; your
praises are as numerous as the days; as the months roll onward, ever your
merits increase. He conquers once who suffers at once; but he who continues
always battling with punishments, and is not overcome with suffering, is
daily crowned.

   2. Now, therefore, let magistrates and consuls or proconsuls go by; let
them glory in the ensigns of their yearly dignity, and in their twelve
fusees. Behold, the heavenly dignity in you is sealed by the brightness of
a year's honour, and already, in the continuance of its victorious glory,
has passed over the rolling circle of the returning year. The rising sun
and the waning moon enlightened the world; but to you, He who made the sun
and moon was a greater light in your dungeon, and the brightness of Christ
glowing in your hearts and minds, irradiated with that eternal and
brilliant light the gloom of the place of punishment, which to others was
so horrible and deadly. The winter has passed through the vicissitudes of
the months; but you, shut up in prison, were undergoing, instead of the
inclemencies of winter, the winter of persecution. To the winter succeeded
the mildness of spring, rejoicing with roses and crowned with flowers; but
to you were present roses and flowers from the delights of paradise, and
celestial garlands wreathed your brows. Behold, the summer is fruitful with
the fertility of the harvest, and the threshing-floor is filled with grain;
but you who have sown glory, reap the fruit of glory, and, placed in the
Lord's threshing-floor, behold the chaff burnt up with unquenchable fire;
yon yourselves as grains of wheat, winnowed and precious corn, now purged
and garnered, regard the dwelling-place of a prison as your granary. Nor is
there wanting to the autumn spiritual grace for discharging the duties of
the season. The vintage is pressed out of doors, and the grape which shall
hereafter flow into the cups is trodden in the presses. You, rich bunches
out of the Lord's vineyard, and branches with fruit  already ripe, trodden
by the tribulation of  worldly pressure, fill your wine-press in the
torturing prison, and shed your blood instead of wine; brave to bear
suffering, you willingly drink the cup of martyrdom. Thus the year rolls on
with the Lord's servants,--thus is celebrated the vicissitude of the
seasons with spiritual deserts, and with celestial rewards.

   3. Abundantly blessed are they who, from your number, passing through
these footprints of glory, have already departed from the world; and,
having finished their journey of virtue and faith, have attained to the
embrace and the kiss of the Lord, to the joy of the Lord Himself. But yet
your glory is not less, who are still engaged in contest, and, about to
follow the glories of your comrades, are long waging the battle, and with
an unmoved and unshaken faith standing fast, are daily exhibiting in your
virtues a spectacle in the sight of God. The longer is your strife, the
loftier will be your crown. The struggle is one, but it is crowded with a
manifold multitude of contests; you conquer hunger, and despise thirst, and
tread under foot the squalor of the dungeon, and the horror of the very
abode of punishment, by the vigour of your courage. Punishment is there
subdued; torture is worn out; death is not feared but desired, being
overcome by the reward of immortality, so that he who has conquered is
crowned with eternity of life. What now must be the mind in you, how
elevated, how large the heart, when such and so great things are resolved,
when nothing but the precepts of God and the rewards of Christ are
considered! The will is then only God's will; and although you are still
placed in the flesh, it is the life not of the present world, but of the
future, that you now live.

   4. It now remains, beloved brethren, that you should be mindful of me;
that, among your great and divine considerations, you should also think of
me in your mind and spirit; and that I should be in your prayers and
supplications, when that voice, which is illustrious by the purification of
confession, and praiseworthy for the continual tenor of its honour,
penetrates to God's ears, and heaven being open to it, passes from these
regions of the world subdued, to the realms above, and obtains from the
Lord's goodness even what it asks. For what do you ask from the Lord's
mercy which you do not deserve to obtain?--you who have thus observed  the
Lord's commands, who have maintained the Gospel discipline with the simple
vigour of your faith, who, with the glory of your virtue uncorrupted, have
stood bravely by the Lord's commands, and by His apostles, and have
confirmed the wavering faith of many by the truth of your martyrdom? Truly,
Gospel witnesses, and truly, Christ's martyrs, resting upon His roots,
founded with strong foundation upon the Rock, you have joined discipline
with virtue, you have brought others to the fear of God, you have made your
martyrdoms, examples. I bid you, brethren, very brave and beloved, ever
heartily farewell; and remember me.

EPISTLE XVI.(1)

THE CONFESSORS TO CYPRIAN.

ARGUMENT.--A CERTIFICATE WRITTEN IN THE NAME OF THE MARTYRS BY LUCIANUS.

   All the confessors to father(2) Cyprian, greeting. Know that, to all,
concerning whom the account of what they have done since the commission of
their sin has been, in your estimation, satisfactory, we have granted
peace; and we have desired that this rescript should be made known by you
to the other bishops also. We bid you to have peace with the holy martyrs.
Lucianus wrote this, there being present of the clergy, both an exorcist
and a reader.

EPISTLE XVII.(3)

TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ABOUT THE FOREGOING AND THE FOLLOWING
LETTERS.

ARGUMENT.--NO ACCOUNT IS TO BE MADE OF CERTIFICATES FROM THE MARTYRS BEFORE
THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH IS RESTORED.

   Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. The Lord
speaketh and saith, "Upon whom shall I look, but upon him that is humble
and quiet, and that trembleth at my words?"(4) Although we ought all to be
this, yet especially those ought to be so who must labour, that, after
their grave lapse, they may, by true penitence and absolute humility,
deserve well of the Lord. Now I have read the letter of the whole body of
confessors, which they wish to be made known by me to all my colleagues,
and in which they requested that the peace given by themselves should be
assured to those concerning whom the account of what they have done since
their crime has been, in our estimation, satisfactory; which matter, as it
waits for the counsel and judgment of all of us,(5) I do not dare to
prejudge, and so to assume a common cause for my own decision. And
therefore, in the meantime, let us abide by the letters which I lately
wrote to you, of which I have now sent a copy to many of my colleagues,(6)
who wrote in reply, that they were pleased with what I had decided, and
that there must be no departure therefrom, until, peace being granted to us
by the Lord, we shall be able to assemble together into one place, and to
examine into the cases of individuals. But that you may know both what my
colleague Caldonius wrote to me, and what I replied to him, I have enclosed
with my letter a copy of each letter, the whole of which I beg you to read
to our brethren, that they may be more and more settled down to patience,
and not add another fault to what had hitherto been their former fault, not
being willing to obey either me or the Gospel, nor allowing their cases  to
be examined in accordance with the letters of all the confessors. I bid
you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell; and have me in remembrance.
Salute all the brotherhood. Fare ye well!

EPISTLE XVIII.(1)

CALDONIUS TO CYPRIAN.

ARGUMENT.--WHEN, IN THE URGENCY OF A NEW PERSECUTION, CERTAIN OF THE LAPSED
HAD CONFESSED CHRIST, AND SO, BEFORE THEY WENT AWAY INTO EXILE, SOUGHT FOR
PEACE, CALDONIUS CONSULTS CYPRIAN AS TO WHETHER PEACE SHOULD BE GRANTED
THEM.

   Caldonius to Cyprian and his fellow-presbyters(2) abiding at Carthage,
greeting. The necessity of the times induces us not hastily to grant peace.
But it was well to write to you, that they(3) who, after having
sacrificed,(4) were again tried, became exiles. And thus they seem to me to
have atoned for their former crime, in that they now let go their
possessions and homes, and, repenting, follow Christ. Thus Felix, who
assisted in the office of presbyter(5) under Decimus, and was very near to
me in bonds (I knew that same Felix very thoroughly), Victoria, his wife,
and Lucius, being faithful, were banished, and have left their possessions,
which the treasury now has in keeping. Moreover, a woman, Bona by name, who
was dragged by her husband to sacrifice, and (with no conscience guilty of
the crime, but because those who held her hands, sacrificed) began to cry
against them, "I did not do it; you it was who did it!"--was also
banished.(6) Since, therefore, all these were asking for peace, saying, "We
have recovered the faith which we had lost, we have repented, and have
publicly confessed Christ"--although it seems to me that they ought to
receive peace,--yet I have referred them to your judgment, that I might not
appear to presume anything rashly. If, therefore, you should wish me to do
anything by the common decision, write to me. Greet our brethren; our
brethren greet you. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XIX.(7)

CYPRIAN REPLIES TO CALDONIUS.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN TREATS OF NOTHING PECULIAR IN THIS EPISTLE, BEYOND
ACQUIESCING IN THE OPINION OF CALDONIUS, TO WIT, THAT PEACE SHOULD NOT BE
REFUSED TO SUCH LAPSED AS, BY A TRUE REPENTANCE AND CONFESSION OF THE NAME
OF CHRIST, HAVE DESERVED IT, AND HAVE THEREFORE RETURNED TO HIM.

   Cyprian to Caldonius, his brother, greeting. We have received your
letter, beloved brother, which is abundantly sensible, and full of honesty
and faith. Nor do we wonder that, skilled and exercised as you are in the
Scriptures of the Lord, you do everything discreetly and wisely. lyon have
judged quite correctly about granting   peace to our brethren, which they,
by true penitence and by the glory of a confession of the Lord, have
restored to themselves, being justified by their words, by which before
they had condemned themselves. Since, then, they have washed away all their
sin, and their former stain, by the help of the Lord, has been done away by
a more powerful virtue, they ought not to lie any longer under the power of
the devil, as it were, prostrate; when, being banished and deprived of all
their property, they have lifted themselves up and have begun to stand with
Christ. And I wish that the others also would repent after their fall, and
be transferred into their former condition; and that you may know how we
have dealt with these, in their urgent and eager rashness and importunity
to extort peace, I have sent a book(8) to you, with letters to the number
of five, that I wrote to the clergy and to the people, and to the martyrs
also and confessors, which letters have already been sent to many of our
colleagues, and have satisfied them; and they replied that they also agree
with me in the same opinion according to the Catholic faith; which very
thing do you also communicate to as many of our colleagues as you can, that
among all these, may be observed one mode of action and one agreement,
according to the Lord's precepts.(9) I bid you, beloved brother, ever
heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XX.(1)

CELERINUS TO LUCIAN.

ARGUMENT.--CELERINUS, ON BEHALF OF HIS LAPSED SISTERS AT ROME, BESEECHES
PEACE FROM THE CARTHAGINIAN CONFESSORS.

   1. Celerinus to Lucian, greeting. In writing this letter to you, my
lord and brother, I have been rejoicing and sorrowful,--rejoicing in that I
had heard that you had been tried on behalf of the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ our Saviour, and had confessed His name in the presence of the
magistrates of the world; but sorrowful, in that from the time when I was
in your company I have never been able to receive your letters. And now
lately a twofold sorrow has fallen upon me; that although you knew that
Montanus, our common brother, was coming to me from you out of the dungeon,
you did not intimate anything to me concerning your wellbeing, nor about
anything that is done in connection with you. This, however, continually
happens to the servants of God, especially to those who are appointed for
the confession of Christ. For I know that every one looks not now to the
things that are of the world, but that he is hoping for a heavenly crown.
Moreover, I said that perhaps you had forgotten to write to me. For if from
the lowest place I may be called by you yours, or brother, if I should be
worthy to hear myself  named Celerinus; yet, when I also was in such a
purple(2) confession, I remembered my oldest brethren, and I took notice of
them in my letters, that their former love was still around me and mine.
Yet I beseech, beloved of the Lord, that if, first of all, you are Washed
in that sacred blood, and have suffered for the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ before my letters find you in this world, or should they now reach
you, that you would answer them to me. So may He crown you whose name you
have confessed. For I believe, that although in this world we do not see
each other, yet in the future we shall embrace one another in the presence
of Christ. Entreat that I may be worthy, even I, to be crowned along with
your company.

   2. Know, nevertheless, that I am placed in the midst of a great
tribulation; and, as if you were present with me, I remember your former
love day and night, God only knows. And therefore I ask that you will grant
my desire, and that you will grieve with me at the (spiritual) death of my
sister, who in this time of devastation has fallen from Christ; for she has
sacrificed and provoked our Lord, as seems manifest to us. And for her
deeds I in this day of paschal rejoicing,(3) weeping day and night, have
spent the days in tears, in sackcloth, and ashes, and I am still spending
them so to this day, until(4) the aid of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
affection manifested through you, or through those my lords who have been
crowned, from whom you are about to ask it, shall come to the help of so
terrible a shipwreck. For I remember your former love, that you will grieve
with all the rest for our sisters whom you also knew well--that is, Numeria
and Candida,--for whose sin, because they have us as brethren, we ought to
keep watch. For I believe that Christ, according to their repentance and
the works which they have done towards our banished colleagues who came
from you--by whom themselves you will hear of their good works,--that
Christ, I say, will have mercy upon them, when you, His martyrs, beseech
Him.

   3. For I have heard that you have received the ministry of the purpled
ones. Oh, happy are you, even sleeping on the ground, to obtain your wishes
which you have always desired! You have desired to be sent into prison for
His name's sake, which now has come to pass; as it is written, "The Lord
grant thee according to thine own heart;"(5) and now made a priest of God
over them, and the same their minister has acknowledged it.(6) I ask,
therefore my lord, and I entreat by our Lord Jesus Christ, that you will
refer the case to the rest of your colleagues, your brethren, my lords, and
ask from them, that whichever of you is first crowned, should remit such a
great sin to those our sisters, Numeria and Candida. For this latter I have
always called Etecusa(7)--God is my witness,--because she gave gifts for
herself that she might not sacrifice; but she appears only to have ascended
to the Tria Fata,(8) and thence to have descended. I know, therefore, that
she has not sacrificed. Their cause having been lately heard, the chief
rulers(9) commanded them in the meantime to remain as they are, until a
bishop should be appointed.(10) But, as far as possible, by your holy
prayers and petitions, in which we trust, since you are friends as well as
witnesses of Christ, (we pray) that you would be indulgent in all these
matters.

   4. I entreat, therefore, beloved lord Lucian, be mindful of me, and
acquiesce in my petition; so may Christ grant you that sacred crown which
he has given you not only in confession but also in holiness, in which you
have always walked and have always been an example to the saints as well as
a witness, that you will relate to all my lords, your brethren the
confessors, all about this matter, that they may receive help from you. For
this, my lord and brother, you ought to know, that it is not I alone who
ask this on their behalf, but also Statius and Severianus, and all the
confessors who have come thence hither from you; to whom these very sisters
went down to the harbour(1) and took them up into the city, and they have
ministered to sixty-five, and even to this day have tended them in all
things, For all are with them. But I ought not to burden that sacred heart
of yours any more, since I know that you will labour with a ready will.
Macharius, with his sisters Cornelia and Emerita, salute you, rejoicing in
your sanguinary confession, as well as in that of all the brethren, and
Saturninus, who himself also wrestled with the devil, who also bravely
confessed the name of Christ, who moreover, under the torture of the
grappling claws, bravely confessed, and who also strongly begs and entreats
this. Your brethren Calphurnius and Maria, and all the holy brethren,
salute you. For you ought to know this too, that I have written also to my
lords your brethren letters. which I request that you will deign to read to
them.

EPISTLE XXI.(2)

LUCIAN REPLIES TO CELERINUS.

ARGUMENT.--LUCIAN ASSENTS TO THE PETITION OF CELERINUS.

   1. Lucian to Celerinus, his lord, and (if I shall be worthy to be
called so) colleague in Christ, greeting. I have received your letter, most
dearly beloved lord and brother, in which you have so laden me with
expressions of kindness, that by reason of your so burdening me I was
almost overcome with such excessive joy; so that I exulted in reading, by
the benefit of your so great humility, the letter, which I also earnestly
desired after so long a time to read, in which you deigned to call me to
remembrance, saying to me in your writing, "if I may be worthy to be called
your brother," of a man such as I am who confessed the name of God with
trembling before the inferior magistrates. For you, by God's will, when you
confessed, not only frightened back the great serpent himself, the pioneer
of Antichrist,(3) (but) have conquered him, by that voice and those divine
words, whereby I know how you love the faith, and how zealous you are for
Christ's discipline, in which I know and rejoice that you are actively
occupied.(4) Now beloved, already to be esteemed among the martyrs, you
have wished to overload me with your letter, in which you told us
concerning our sisters, on whose behalf I wish that we could by possibility
mention them without remembering also so great a crime committed. Assuredly
we should not then think of them with so many tears as we do now.

   2. You ought to know what has been done concerning us. When the blessed
martyr Paulus was still in the body, he called me and said to me: "Lucian,
in the presence of Christ I say to you, If any one, after my being called
away, shall ask for peace from you, grant it in my name." Moreover, all of
us whom the Lord has condescended in such tribulation to call away, by our
letters, by mutual agreement, have given peace to all. You see, then,
brother, how (I have done this) in part of what Paulus bade me, as what we
in all cases decreed when we were in this tribulation, wherein by the
command of the emperor we were ordered to be put to death by hunger and
thirst, and were shut up in two cells, that so they might weaken us by
hunger and thirst. Moreover, the fire from the effect of our torture was so
intolerable(5) that nobody could bear it. But now we have attained the
brightness itself. And therefore, beloved brother, greet Numeria and
Candida, who (shall have peace(6)) according to the precept of Paulus, and
the rest of the martyrs whose names I subjoin: viz., Bassus in the dungeon
of the perjured,(7) Mappalicus at the torture, Fortunio in prison, Paulus
after torture, Fortunata, Victorinus, Victor, Herennius, Julia, Martial,
and Aristo, who by God's will were put to death in the prison by hunger, of
whom in a few days you will hear of me as a companion. For now there are
eight days, from the day in which I was shut up again, to the day in which
I wrote my letter to you. For before these eight days, for five intervening
days, I received a morsel of bread and water by measure. And therefore,
brother, as here, since the Lord has begun to give peace to the Church
itself, according to the precept of Paulus, and our tractate, the case
being set forth before the bishop, and confession being made, I ask that
not only these may have peace, but also (all) those whom you know to be
very near to our heart.

   3. All my colleagues greet you. Do you greet the confessors of the Lord
who are there with you, whose names you have intimated, among whom also are
Saturninus, with his companions, but who also is my colleague, and Maris,
Collecta, and Emerita, Calphurnius and Maria, Sabina, Spesina, and the
sisters, Januaria, Dativa, Donata. We greet Saturus with his family,
Bassianus and all the clergy, Uranius, Alexius, Quintainus, Colonica, and
all whose names I have not written, because I am already weary. Therefore
they must pardon me. I bid you heartily farewell, and Alexius, and
Getulicus, and the money-changers, and the sisters. My sisters Januaria and
Sophia, whom I commend to you, greet you.(1)

EPISTLE XXII.(2)

TO THE CLERGY ABIDING AT ROME, CONCERNING MANY OF THE CONFESSORS, AND
CONCERNING THE FORWARDNESS OF LUCIAN AND THE MODESTY OF CELERINUS THE
CONFESSOR.

ARGUMENT.--IN THIS LETTER CYPRIAN INFORMS THE ROMAN CLERGY OF THE SEDITIOUS
DEMAND OF THE LAPSED TO BE RESTORED TO PEACE, AND OF THE FORWARDNESS OF
LUCIAN. IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY BETTER UNDERSTAND THESE MATTERS, CYPRIAN
TAKES CARE THAT NOT ONLY HIS OWN LETTERS, BUT ALSO THOSE OF CELERINUS AND
LUCIAN, SHOULD BE SENT TO THEM.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome, his brethren,
greeting. After the letters that I wrote to you, beloved brethren, in which
what I had done was explained, and some slight account was given of my
discipline and diligence, there came another matter which, any more than
the others, ought not to be concealed from you. For our brother Lucian, who
himself also is one of the confessors, earnest indeed in faith, and robust
in virtue, but little established in the reading of the Lord's word, has
attempted certain things, constituting himself  for a time an authority for
unskilled people, so that certificates written by his hand were given
indiscriminately to many persons in the name of Paulus; whereas Mappalicus
the martyr, cautious and modest, mindful of the law and discipline, wrote
no letters contrary to the Gospel, but only, moved with domestic affection
for his mother,(3) who had fallen, commanded peace to be given to her.
Saturninus, moreover, after his torture, still remaining in prison, sent
out no letters of this kind. But Lucian, not only while Paulus was still in
prison, gave everywhere in his name certificates written with his own hand,
but even after his decease persisted in doing the same things under his
name, saying that this had been commanded him by Paulus, ignorant that he
must obey the Lord rather than his fellow-servant. In the name also of
Aurelius, a young man who had undergone the torture, many certificates were
given, written by the hand of the same Lucian, because Aurelius did not
know how to write himself.

   2. In order, in some measure, to put a stop to this practice, I wrote
letters to them, which I have sent to you under the enclosure of the former
letter, in which I did not fail to ask and persuade them that consideration
might be had for the law of the Lord and the Gospel. But after I sent my
letters to them, that, as it were, something might be done more moderately
and temperately; the same Lucian wrote a letter in the name of all the
confessors, in which well nigh every bond of faith, and fear of God, and
the Lord's command, and the sacredness and sincerity of the Gospel were
dissolved. For he wrote in the name of all, that they had given peace to
all, and that he wished that this decree should be communicated through me
to the other bishops, of which letter I transmitted a copy to you. It was
added indeed, "of whom the account of what they have done since their crime
has been satisfactory;"--a thing this which excites a greater odium against
me, because I, when I have begun to hear the cases of each one and to
examine into them, seem to deny to many what they now are all boasting that
they have received from the martyrs anti confessors.

   3. Finally, this seditious practice has already begun to appear; for in
our province, through some of its cities, an attack has been made by the
multitude upon their rulers, and they have compelled that peace to be given
to them immediately which they all cried out had been once given to them by
the martyrs and confessors. Their rulers, being frightened and subdued,
were of little avail to resist them, either by vigour of mind or by
strength of faith. With us, moreover, some turbulent spirits, who in time
past were  with difficulty governed by me, and were delayed till my coming,
were inflamed by this letter as if by a firebrand, and began to be more
violent, and to extort the peace granted to them. I have sent a copy to you
of the letters that I wrote to my clergy about these matters, and,
moreover, what Caldonius, my colleague, of his integrity and faithfulness
wrote, and what I replied to him. I have sent both to you to read. Copies
also of the letter of Celerinus, the good and stout confessor, which he
wrote to Lucian the same confessor--also what Lucian replied to him,--I
have sent to you; that you may know both my labour in respect of
everything, and my diligence, and might learn the truth itself, how
moderate and cautious is Celerinus the confessor, and how reverent both in
his humility and fear for our faith; while Lucian, as I have said, is less
skilful concerning the understanding of the Lord's word, and by his
facility, is mischievous on account of the dislike that he causes for my
reverential dealing. For while the Lord has said that the nations are to be
baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
and their past sins are to be done away in baptism; this man, ignorant of
the precept and of the law, commands peace to be granted and sins to be
done away in the name of Paulus; and he says that this was commanded him by
Paulus, as you will observe in the letter sent by the same Lucian to
Celerinus, in which he very little considered that it is not martyrs that
make the Gospel, but that martyrs are made by the Gospel;(1) since Paul
also, the apostle whom the Lord called a chosen vessel unto Him, laid down
in his epistle: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called
you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel: which is not another;
but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you
than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said
before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you
than that ye have received, let him be accursed."(2)

   4. But your letter, which I received, written to my clergy, came
opportunely; as also did those which the blessed confessors, Moyses and
Maximus, Nicostratus, and the rest, sent to Saturninus and Aurelius, and
the others, in which are contained the full vigour of the Gospel and the
robust discipline of the law of the Lord. Your words much assisted me as I
laboured here, and withstood with the whole strength of faith the onset of
ill-will, so that my work was shortened from above, and that before the
letters which I last sent you reached you, you declared to me, that
according to the Gospel law, your judgment also strongly and unanimously
concurred with mine. I bid you, brethren, beloved and longed-for, ever
heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XXIII.(3)

TO THE CLERGY, ON THE LETTERS SENT TO ROME, AND ABOUT THE APPOINTMENT OF
SATURUS AS READER, AND OPTATUS AS SUB-DEACON. A.D. 250.

ARGUMENT.--THE CLERGY ARE INFORMED BY THIS LETTER OF THE ORDINATION OF
SATURUS AND OPTATUS, AND WHAT CYPRIAN HAD WRITTEN TO ROME.

   Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. That
nothing may be unknown to your consciousness, beloved brethren,  of what
was written to me and what I replied, I have sent you a copy of each
letter, and I believe that my rejoinder will not displease you. But I ought
to acquaint you in my letter concerning this, that for a very urgent reason
I have sent a letter to the clergy who abide in the city. And since it
behoved me to write by clergy, while I know that very many of ours are
absent, and the few that are there are hardly sufficient for the ministry
of the daily duty, it was necessary to appoint some new ones, who might be
sent. Know, then, that I have made Saturus a reader, and Optatus, the
confessor, a sub-deacon; whom already, by the general advice, we had made
next to the clergy, in having entrusted to Saturus on Easter-day, once and
again, the reading; and when with the teacher-presbyters(4) we were
carefully trying readers--in appointing Optatus from among the readers to
be a teacher of the hearers;--examining, first of all, whether all things
were found fitting in them, which ought to be found in such as were in
preparation for the clerical office. Nothing new, therefore, has been done
by me in your absence; but what, on the general advice of all of us had
been begun, has, upon urgent necessity, been accomplished. I bid you,
beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell; and remember me.Fare ye well.

EPISTLE XXIV.(5)

TO MOYSES AND MAXIMUS AND THE REST OF THE CONFESSORS.

ARGUMENT.--THIS LETTER IS ONE OF CONGRATULATION TO THE ROMAN CONFESSORS.

   1. Cyprian to Moyses and Maximus, the presbyters, and to the other
confessors, his very beloved brethren, greeting. I had already known from
rumour, most brave and blessed brethren, the glory of your faith and
virtue, rejoicing greatly and abundantly congratulating you, that the
highest condescension of our Lord Jesus Christ should have prepared you for
the crown by confession of His name. For you, who have become chiefs and
leaders in the battle of our day, have set forward the standard of the
celestial warfare; you have made a beginning of the spiritual contest which
God has purposed to be now waged by your valour; you, with unshaken
strength and unyielding firmness, have broken the first onset of the rising
war. Thence have arisen happy openings of the fight; thence have begun good
auspices of victory. It happened that here martyrdoms were consummated by
tortures. But he who, preceding in the struggle, has been made an example
of virtue to the brethren, is on common ground with the martyrs in honour.
Hence you have delivered to us garlands woven by your hand, and have
pledged your brethren from the cup of salvation.

   2. To these glorious beginnings of confession and the omens of a
victorious warfare, has been added the maintenance of discipline, which I
observed from the vigour of your letter that you lately sent to your
colleagues joined with you to the Lord in confession, with anxious
admonition, that the sacred precepts of the Gospel and the commandments of
life once delivered to us should be kept with firm and rigid observance.
Behold another lofty degree of your glory; behold, with confession, a
double title to deserving well of God,--to stand with a firm step, and to
drive away in this struggle, by the strength of your faith, those who
endeavour to make a breach in the Gospel, and bring impious hands to the
work of undermining the Lord's precepts:--to have before afforded the
indications of courage, and now to afford lessons of life. The Lord, when,
after His resurrection, He sent forth His apostles, charges them, saying,
"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you."(1) And the Apostle John, remembering this charge,
subsequently lays it down in his epistle: "Hereby," says he, "we do know
that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith he knoweth
Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in
him."(2) You prompt the keeping of these precepts; you observe the divine
and heavenly commands. This is to be a confessor of the Lord; this is to be
a martyr of Christ, -to keep the firmness of one's profession inviolate
among all evils, and secure.(3) For to wish to become a martyr for the
Lord, and to try to overthrow the Lord's precepts; to use against Him the
condescension that He has granted you;--to become, as it were, a rebel with
arms that you have received from Him;--this is to wish to confess Christ,
and to deny Christ's Gospel. I rejoice, therefore, on your behalf, most
brave and faithful brethren; and as much as I congratulate the martyrs
there honoured for the glory of their strength, so much do I also equally
congratulate you for the crown of the Lord's discipline. The Lord has shed
forth His condescension in manifold kinds of liberality. He has distributed
the praises of good soldiers and their spiritual glories in plentiful
variety. We also are sharers in your honour; we count your glory our glory,
whose times have been brightened by such a felicity, that it should be the
fortune of our day to see the proved servants of God and Christ's soldiers
crowned. I bid you, most brave and blessed brethren, ever heartily
farewell; and remember me.

EPISTLE XXV.(4)

MOYSES, MAXIMUS, NICOSTRATUS, AND THE OTHER CONFESSORS ANSWER THE FOREGOING
LETTER. .A.D. 250.

ARGUMENT.--THEY GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE THE CONSOLATION WHICH THE ROMAN
CONFESSORS HAD RECEIVED FROM CYPRIAN'S LETTER.MARTYRDOM IS NOT A
PUNISHMENT, BUT A HAPPINESS. THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL ARE BRANDS TO INFLAME
FAITH. IN THE CASE OF THE LAPSED, THE JUDGMENT OF CYPRIAN IS ACQUIESCED IN.

   1. To Caecilius Cyprian, bishop of the church of the Carthaginians,
Moyses and Maximus, presbyters, and Nicostratus and Rufinus, deacons, and
the other confessors persevering in the faith of the truth, in God the
Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit,
greeting. Placed, brother, as we are among various and manifold sorrows, on
account of the present desolations of many brethren throughout almost the
whole world,(5) this chief consolation has reached us, that we have been
lifted up by the receipt of your letter, and have gathered some alleviation
for the griefs of our saddened spirit. From which we can already perceive
that the grace of divine providence wished to keep us so long shut up in
the prison chains, perhaps for no other reason than that, instructed and
more vigorously animated by your letter, we might with a more earnest will
attain to the destined crown. For your letter has shone upon us as a calm
in the midst of a tempest, and as the longed-for tranquillity in the midst
of a troubled sea, and as repose in labours, as health in dangers and
pains, as in the densest darkness, the bright and glowing light. Thus we
drank it up with a thirsty spirit, and received it with a hungry desire; so
that we rejoice to find ourselves by it sufficiently fed and strengthened
for encounter with the foe. The Lord will reward you for that love of
yours, and will restore you the fruit due to this so good work; for he who
exhorts is not less worthy of the reward of the crown than he who suffers;
not less worthy of praise is he who has taught, than he who has acted also;
he is not less to be honoured who has warned, than he who has fought;
except that sometimes the weight of glory more redounds to him who trains,
than to him who has shown himself a teachable learner; for the latter,
perchance, would not have bad what he has practised, unless the former had
taught him.

   2. Therefore, again, we say, brother Cyprian, we have received great
joy, great comfort, great refreshment, especially in that you have
described, with glorious and deserved praises, the glorious, I will not
say, deaths, but immortalities of martyrs. For such departures should have
been proclaimed with such words, that the things which were related might
be told in such manner as they were done. Thus, from your letter, we saw
those glorious triumphs of the martyrs; and with our eyes in some sort have
followed them as they went to heaven, and have contemplated them seated
among angels, and the powers and dominions of heaven. Moreover, we have in
some manner perceived with our ears the Lord giving them the promised
testimony in the presence of the Father. It is this, then, which also
raises our spirit day by day, and inflames us to the following of the track
of such dignity.

   3. For what more glorious, or what more blessed, can happen to any man
from the divine condescension, than to confess the Lord God, in death
itself, before his very executioners? Than among the raging and varied and
exquisite tortures of worldly power, even when the body is racked and torn
and cut to pieces, to confess Christ the Son of God with a spirit still
free, although departing? Than to have mounted to  heaven with the world
left behind? Than, having forsaken men, to stand among the angels? Than,
all worldly impediments being broken through, already to stand free in the
sight of God? Than  to enjoy the heavenly kingdom without any delay? Than
to have become an associate of Christ's passion in Christ's name? Than to
have become by the divine condescension the judge of one's own judge? Than
to have brought off an unstained conscience from the confession of His
name? Than to have refused to obey human and sacrilegious laws against the
faith? Than to have borne witness to the truth with a public testimony?
Than, by dying, to have subdued death itself, which is dreaded by all?
Than, by death itself, to have attained immortality? Than when torn to
pieces, and tortured by all the instruments of cruelty, to have overcome
the torture by the tortures themselves? Than by strength of mind to have
wrestled with all the agonies of a mangled body? Than not to have shuddered
at the flow of one's own blood?  Than to have begun to love one's
punishments, after having faith to bear them?(1) Than to think it an injury
to one's life not to have left it?

   4. For to this battle our Lord, as with the trumpet of His Gospel,
stimulates us when He says, "He that loveth father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me: and he that loveth his own soul more than me is not
worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is
not worthy of me."(2) And again, "Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed shall ye
be, when men shall persecute you, and hate you. Rejoice, and be exceeding
glad: for so did their fathers persecute the prophets which were before
you."(3) And again," Because ye shall stand before kings and powers, and
the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son,
and he that endureth to the end shall be saved;"(4) and "To him that
overcometh will I give to sit on my throne, even as I also overcame and am
set down on the throne of my Father."(5) Moreover the apostle: "Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (As it is
written, For thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are accounted as
sheep for the slaughter.) Nay, in all these things we are more than
conquerors for Him who hath loved us."(6)

   5. When we read these things,(7) and things of the like kind, brought
together in the Gospel, and feel, as it were, torches placed under us, with
the Lord's words to inflame our faith, we not only do not dread, but we
even provoke(8) the enemies of the truth; and we have already conquered the
opponents of God, by the very fact of our not yielding to them, and have
subdued their nefarious laws against the truth. And although we have not
yet shed our blood, we are prepared to shed it. Let no one think that this
delay of our departure(1) is any clemency; for it obstructs us, it makes a
hindrance to our glory, it puts off heaven, it withholds the glorious sight
of God. For in a contest of this kind, and in the kind of contest when
faith is struggling in the encounter, it is not true clemency to put off
martyrs by delay. Entreat therefore, beloved Cyprian, that of His mercy the
Lord will every day more and more arm and adorn every one of us with
greater abundance and readiness, and will confirm and strengthen us by the
strength of His power; and, as a good captain, will at length bring forth
His soldiers, whom He has hitherto trained and proved in the camp of our
prison, to the field of the battle set before them. May He hold forth to us
the divine arms, those weapons that know not how to be conquered,--the
breastplate of righteousness, which is never accustomed to be broken,--the
shield of faith, which cannot be pierced through,--the helmet of salvation,
which cannot be shattered,--and the sword of the Spirit, which has never
been wont to be injured. For to whom should we rather commit these things
for him to ask for us, than to our so reverend bishop,(2) as destined
victims asking help of the priest?

   6. Behold another joy of ours, that, in the duty of your episcopate,
although in the meantime you have been, owing to the condition of the
times, divided from your brethren, you have frequently confirmed the
confessors by your letters; that you have ever afforded necessary supplies
from your own just acquisitions; that in all things you have always shown
yourself in some sense present; that in no part of your duty have you hung
behind as a deserter.(3) But what more strongly stimulated us to a greater
joy we cannot be silent upon, but must describe with all the testimony of
our voice. For we observe that you have both rebuked with fitting censure,
and worthily, those who, unmindful of their sins, had, with hasty and eager
desire, extorted peace from the presbyters in your absence, and those who,
without respect for the Gospel, had with profane facility granted the
holiness(4) of the Lord unto dogs, and pearls to swine; although a great
crime, and one which has extended with incredible destructiveness almost
over the whole earth, ought only, as you yourself write, to be treated
cautiously and with moderation, with the advice of all the bishops,
presbyters, deacons, confessors, and even the laymen who abide fast,(5) as
in your letters you yourself also testify; so that, while wishing
unseasonably to bring repairs to the ruins, we may not appear to be
bringing about other and greater destruction, for where is the divine word
left, if pardon be so easily granted to sinners? Certainly their spirits
are to be cheered and to be nourished up to the season of their maturity,
and they are to be instructed from the Holy Scriptures how great and
surpassing a sin they have committed. Nor let them be animated by the fact
that they are many, but rather let them be checked by the fact that they
are not few.(6) An unblushing number has never been accustomed to have
weight in extenuation of a crime; but shame, modesty, patience, discipline,
humility, and subjection, waiting for the judgment of others upon itself,
and bearing the sentence of others upon its own judgment,--this it is which
proves penitence; this it is which skins over a deep wound; this it is
which raises up the ruins of the fallen spirit and restores them, which
quells and restrains the burning vapour of their raging sins. For the
physician will not give to the sick the food of healthy bodies, lest the
unseasonable nourishment, instead of repressing, should stimulate the power
of the raging disease,--that is to say, lest what might have been sooner
diminished by abstinence, should, through impatience, be prolonged by
growing indigestion.

   7. Hands, therefore, polluted with impious sacrifices(7) must be
purified with good works, and wretched mouths defiled with accursed food(8)
must be purged with words of true penitence, and the spirit must be renewed
and consecrated in the recesses of the faithful heart. Let the frequent
groanings of the penitents be heard; let faithful tears be shed from the
eyes not once only, but again and again, so that those very eyes which
wickedly looked upon idols may wash away, with tears that satisfy God, the
unlawful things that they had done. Nothing is necessary for diseases but
patience: they who  are weary and weak wrestle with their pain;  and so at
length hope for health, if, by tolerating it, they can overcome their
suffering; for unfaithful is the scar which the physician has too quickly
produced; and the healing is undone by any little casualty, if the remedies
be not used faithfully from their very slowness. The flame is quickly
recalled again to a conflagration, unless the material of the whole fire be
extinguished even to the extremest spark; so that men of this kind should
justly know that even they themselves are more advantaged by the very
delay, and that more trusty remedies are applied by the necessary
postponement. Besides, where shall it be said that they who confess Christ
are shut up in the keeping of a squalid prison, if they who have denied Him
are in no peril of their faith? Where, that they are bound in the cincture
of chains in God's name, if they who have not kept the confession of God
are not deprived of communion? Where, that the imprisoned martyrs lay down
their glorious lives, if those who have forsaken the faith do not feel the
magnitude of their dangers and their sins? But if they betray too much
impatience, and demand communion with intolerable eagerness, they vainly
utter with petulant and unbridled tongues those querulous and invidious
reproaches which avail nothing against the truth, since they  might have
retained by their own right what  now by a necessity, which they of their
own free will have sought, they are compelled to sue for.(1) For the faith
which could confess Christ, could also have been kept by Christ in
communion. We bid you, blessed and most glorious father, ever heartily
farewell in the Lord; and have us in remembrance.

EPISTLE XXVI.(2)

CYPRIAN TO THE LAPSED.

ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THIS LETTER IS FOUND BELOW IN LETTER XXVII.
"THEY WROTE TO ME," SAYS HE, "NOT ASKING THAT PEACE SHOULD BE GRANTED THEM,
BUT CLAIMING IT FOR THEMSELVES AS ALREADY GRANTED, BECAUSE THEY SAY THAT
PAULUS HAS GIVEN PEACE TO ALL; AS YOU WILL READ IN THEIR LETTER OF WHICH I
HAVE SENT YOU A COPY, TOGETHER WITH WHAT I BRIEFLY REPLIED TO THEM" BUT THE
LETTER OF THE LAPSED TO WHICH HE REPLIES IS WANTING.

   1. Our Lord, whose precepts and admonitions we ought to observe,
describing the honour of a bishop(3) and the order of His Church, speaks in
the Gospel, and says to Peter: "I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and
upon this rock will I build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:
and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."(4)
Thence, through the changes of times and successions, the ordering of
bishops and the plan of the Church flow onwards; so that the Church is
founded upon the bishops, and every act of the Church is controlled by
these same rulers.s Since this, then, is founded on the divine law, I
marvel that some, with daring temerity, have chosen to write to me as if
they wrote in the name of the Church; when the Church is established in the
bishop and the clergy, and all who stand fast in the faith. For far be it
from the mercy of God and His uncontrolled might to suffer the number of
the lapsed to be called the Church; since it is written, "God is not the
God of the dead, but of the living."(6) For we indeed desire that all may
be made alive; and we pray that, by our supplications and groans, they may
be restored to their original state. But if certain lapsed ones claim to be
the Church, and if the Church be among them and in them, what is left but
for us to ask of these very persons that they would deign to admit us into
the Church? Therefore it behoves them to be submissive and quiet and
modest, as those who ought to appease God, in remembrance of their sin, and
not to write letters in the name of the Church, when they should rather be
aware that they are writing to the Church.

   2. But some who are of the lapsed have lately written to me, and are
humble and meek and trembling and fearing God, and who have always laboured
in the Church gloriously and liberally, and who have never made a boast of
their labour to the Lord, knowing that He has said, "When ye shall have
done all these things, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that
which was our duty to do."(7) Thinking of which things, and although they
had received certificates from the martyrs, nevertheless, that their
satisfaction might be admitted by the Lord, these persons beseeching have
written to me that they acknowledge their sin, and are truly repentant, and
do not hurry rashly or importunately to secure peace; but that they are
waiting for my presence, saying that even peace itself, if they should
receive it when I was present, would be sweeter to them. How greatly I
congratulate these, the Lord is my witness, who hath condescended to tell
what such, and such sort of servants deserve of His kindness. Which
letters, as I lately received, and now read that yon have written very
differently, I beg that you will discriminate between your wishes; and
whoever you are who have sent this letter, add your names to the
certificate, and transmit the certificate to me with your several names.
For I must first know to whom I have to reply; then I will respond to each
of the matters that you have written, having regard to the mediocrity of my
place and conduct. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell, and
live quietly and tranquilly according to the Lord's discipline. Fare ye
well.

EPISTLE XXVII.(1)

TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS.

ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THIS LETTER IS SUFFICIENTLY IN AGREEMENT WITH
THE PRECEDING, AND IT APPEARS THAT IT IS THE ONE OF WHICH HE SPEAKS IN THE
FOLLOWING LETTER;  FOR HE PRAISES HIS CLERGY FOR HAVING REJECTED FROM
COMMUNION GAIUS OF DIDDA, A PRESBYTER, AND HIS DEACON, WHO RASHLY
COMMUNICATED WITH THE LAPSED; AND EXHORTS THEM TO DO THE SAME WITH CERTAIN
OTHERS.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. You
have done uprightly and with discipline, beloved brethren, that, by the
advice of my colleagues who were present, you have decided not to
communicate with Gaius the presbyter of Didda, and his deacon; who, by
communicating with the lapsed, and offering their oblations,(2) have been
frequently taken in their wicked errors; and who once and again, as you
wrote to me, when warned by my colleagues not to do this, have persisted
obstinately, in their presumption and audacity, deceiving certain brethren
also from among our people, whose benefit we desire with all humility to
consult, and whose salvation we take care for, not with affected adulation,
but with sincere faith, that they may supplicate the Lord with true
penitence and groaning and sorrow, since it is written, "Remember from
whence thou art fallen, and repent."(3) And again, the divine Scripture
says, "Thus saith the Lord, When thou shalt be converted and lament, then
thou shalt be saved, and shall know where thou hast been."(4)

   2. Yet how can those mourn and repent, whose groanings and tears some
of the presbyters obstruct when they rashly think that they may be
communicated with, not knowing that it is written, "They who call you happy
s cause you to err, and destroy the path of your feet?"(6) Naturally, our
wholesome and true counsels have no success, whilst the salutary truth is
hindered by mischievous blandishments and flatteries, and the wounded and
unhealthy mind of the lapsed suffers what those also who are bodily
diseased and sick often suffer; that while they refuse wholesome food and
beneficial drink as bitter and distasteful, and crave those things which
seem to please them and to be sweet for the present, they are inviting to
themselves mischief and death by their recklessness and intemperance. Nor
does the true remedy of the skilful physician avail to their safety, whilst
the sweet enticement is deceiving with its charms.

   3. Do you, therefore, according to my letters, take counsel about this
faithfully and wholesomely, and do not recede from better counsels; and be
careful to read these same letters to my colleagues also, if there are any
present, or if any should come to you; that, with unanimity and concord, we
may maintain a healthful plan for soothing and healing the wounds of the
lapsed, intending to deal very fully with all when, by the Lord's mercy, we
shall begin to assemble together. In the meantime, if any unrestrained and
impetuous person, whether of our presbyters or deacons or of strangers,
should dare, before our decree, to communicate with the lapsed, let him be
expelled from our communion, and plead the cause of his rashness before all
of us when, by the Lord's permission, we shall assemble together again.(7)
Moreover, you wished me to reply what I thought concerning Philumenus and
Fortunatus, sub-deacons, and Favorinus, an acolyte, who retired in the
midst of the time of trial, and have now returned. Of which thing I cannot
make myself sole judge, since many of the clergy are still absent, and have
not considered, even thus late, that they should return to their place; and
this case of each one must be considered separately and fully investigated,
not only with my colleagues, but also with the whole of the people
themselves.(7) For a matter which hereafter may constitute an example as
regards the ministers of the Church must be weighed and adjudged with
careful deliberation. In the meanwhile, let them only abstain from the
monthly division,(8) not so as to seem to be deprived of the ministry of
the Church, but that all matters being in a sound state, they may be
reserved till my coming. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily
farewell.Greet all the brotherhood, and fare ye well.

EPISTLE XXVIII.(9)

TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ABIDING AT ROME.

ARGUMENT.--THE ROMAN CLERGY ARE INFORMED OF THE TEMERITY OF THE LAPSED WHO
WERE DEMANDING PEACE.

   Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome, his brethren,
greeting. Both our common love and the reason of the thing demand, beloved
brethren, that I should keep back from your knowledge nothing of those
matters which are transacted among us, that so we may have a common plan
for the advantage of the administration of the Church. For after I wrote to
you the letter which I sent by Saturus the reader, and Optatus the sub-
deacon, the combined temerity of certain of the lapsed, who refuse to
repent and to make satisfaction to God, wrote to me, not asking that peace
might be given to them, but claiming it as already given; because they say
that Paulus has given peace to all, as you will read in their letter of
which I have sent you a copy, as well as what I briefly replied to them in
the meantime. But that you may also know what sort of a letter I afterwards
wrote to the clergy, I have, moreover, sent you a copy of this. But if,
after all, their temerity should not be repressed either by my letters or
by yours, and should not yield to wholesome counsels, I shall take such
proceedings as the Lord, according to His Gospel, has enjoined to be taken.
I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XXIX.(1)

THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ABIDING AT ROME, TO CYPRIAN.

ARGUMENT.--THE ROMAN CHURCH DECLARES ITS JUDGMENT CONCERNING THE LAPSED TO
BE IN AGREEMENT WITH THE CARTHAGINIAN DECREES. ANY INDULGENCE SHOWN TO THE
LAPSED IS REQUIRED TO BE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW OF THE GOSPEL. THAT THE
PEACE GRANTED BY THE CONFESSORS DEPENDS ONLY UPON GRACE AND GOOD-WILL, IS
MANIFEST FROM THE FACT THAT THE LAPSED ARE REFERRED TO THE BISHOPS. THE
SEDITIOUS DEMAND FOR PEACE MADE BY FELICISSIMUS IS TO BE ATTRIBUTED TO
FACTION.

   1. The presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome, to Father(2) Cyprian,
greeting. When, beloved brother, we carefully read your letter which you
had sent by Fortunatus the sub-deacon, we were smitten with a double
sorrow, and disordered with a twofold grief, that there was not any rest
given to you in such necessities of the  persecution, and that the
unreasonable petulance of the lapsed brethren was declared to be carried
even to a dangerous boldness of expression. But although those things which
we have spoken of severely afflicted us and our spirit, yet your rigour and
the severity that you have used, according to the proper discipline,
moderates the so heavy load of our grief, in that you rightly restrain the
wickedness of some, and, by your exhortation to repentance, show the
legitimate way of salvation That they should have wished to hurry to such
an extreme as this, we are indeed considerably surprised; as that with such
urgency, and at so unseasonable and bitter a time, being in so great and
excessive a sin, they should not so much ask for, as claim, peace for
themselves; nay, should say that they already have it in heaven. If they
have it, why do they ask for what they possess? But if, by the very fact
that they are asking for it, it is proved that they have it not, wherefore
do they not accept the judgment of those from whom they have thought fit to
ask for the peace, which they certainly have not got? But if they think
that they have from any other source the prerogative of communion, let them
try to compare it with the Gospel, that so at length it may abundantly
avail them, if it is not out of harmony with the Gospel law. But on what
principle can that give Gospel communion which seems to be established
contrary to Gospel truth? For since every prerogative contemplates the
privilege of association, precisely on the assumption of its not being out
of harmony with the will of Him with whom it seeks to be associated; then,
because this is alien from His will with whom it seeks to be associated, it
must of necessity lose the indulgence and privilege of the association.

   2. Let them, then, see what it is they are trying to do in this matter.
For if they say that the Gospel has established one decree, but the martyrs
have established another; then they, setting the martyrs at variance with
the Gospel, will be in danger on both sides. For, on the one hand, the
majesty of the Gospel will already appear shattered and cast down, if it
can be overcome by the novelty of another decree; and, on the other, the
glorious crown of confession will be taken from the heads of the martyrs,
if they be not found to have attained it by the observation of that Gospel
whence they become martyrs; so that, reasonably, no one should be more
careful to determine nothing contrary to the Gospel, than he who strives to
receive the name of martyr from the Gospel. We should like, besides, to be
informed of this: if martyrs become martyrs for no other reason than that
by not sacrificing they may keep the peace of the Church even to the
shedding of their own blood, lest, overcome by the suffering of the
torture, by losing peace, they might lose salvation; on what principle do
they think that the salvation, which if they had sacrificed they thought
that they should not have, was to be given to those who are said to have
sacrificed; although they ought to maintain that law in others. which they
themselves appear to have held before their own eyes? In which thing we
observe that they have put forward against their own cause the very thing
which they thought made for them. For if the martyrs thought that peace was
to be granted to them, why did not they themselves grant it? Why did they
think that, as they themselves say, they were to be referred to the
bishops? For he who orders a thing to be done, can assuredly do that which
he orders to be done. But, as we understand, nay, as the case itself speaks
and proclaims, the most holy martyrs thought that a proper measure of
modesty and of truth must be observed on both sides. For as they were urged
by many, in remitting them to the bishop they conceived that they would
consult their own modesty so as to be no further disquieted; and in
themselves not holding communion with them, they judged that the purity of
the Gospel law ought to be maintained unimpaired.

   3. But of your charity, brother, never desist from soothing the spirits
of the lapsed and affording to the erring the medicine of truth, although
the temper of the sick is wont to reject the kind offices of those who
would heal them. This wound of the lapsed is as yet fresh, and the sore is
still rising into a tumour; and therefore we are certain, that when, in the
course of more protracted time, that urgency of theirs shall have worn out,
they will love that very delay which refers them to a faithful medicine; if
only there be not those who arm them for their own danger, and, instructing
them perversely, demand on their behalf, instead of the salutary remedies
of delay, the fatal poisons of a premature communion. For we do not
believe, that without the instigation of certain persons they would all
have dared so petulantly to claim peace for themselves. We know the faith
of the Carthaginian church,(1) we know her training, we know her humility;
whence also we have marvelled that we should observe certain things
somewhat rudely suggested against you by letter, although we have often
become aware of your mutual love and charity, in many illustrations of
reciprocal affection of one another. It is time, therefore, that they
should repent of their fault, that they should prove their grief for their
lapse, that they should show modesty, that they should manifest humility,
that they should exhibit some shame, that, by their submission, they should
appeal to God's clemency for themselves, and by due honour for(2) God's
priest should draw forth upon themselves the divine mercy. How vastly
better would have been the letters of these men themselves, if the prayers
of those who stood fast had been aided by their own humility! since that
which is asked for is more easily obtained, when he for whom it is asked is
worthy, that what is asked should be obtained.

   4. In respect, however, of Privatus of Lambesa, you have acted as you
usually do, in desiring to inform us of the matter, as being an object of
anxiety; for it becomes us all to watch for the body of the whole Church,
whose members are scattered through every various province.(3) But the
deceitfulness of that crafty man could not be hid from us even before we
had your letters; for previously, when from the company of that very
wickedness a certain Futurus came, a standard-bearer of Privatus, and was
desirous of fraudulently obtaining letters from us, we were neither
ignorant who he was, nor did he get the letters which he wanted. We bid you
heartily farewell in the Lord.

EPISTLE XXX.(4)

THE ROMAN CLERGY TO CYPRIAN.

ARGUMENT.--THE ROMAN CLERGY ENTER INTO THE MATTERS WHICH THEY HAD SPOKEN OF
IN THE FOREGOING LETTER, MORE FULLY AND SUBSTANTIALLY IN THE PRESENT ONE;
REPLYING, MOREOVER, TO ANOTHER LETTER OF CYPRIAN, WHICH IS THOUGHT NOT TO
BE EXTANT, AND FROM WHICH THEY QUOTE A FEW WORDS. THEY THANK CYPRIAN FOR
HIS LETTERS SENT TO THE ROMAN CONFESSORS AND MARTYRS.(5)

   1. To Father(6) Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome,
greeting. Although a mind conscious to itself of uprightness, and relying
on the vigour of evangelical discipline, and made a true witness to itself
in the heavenly decrees, is accustomed to be satisfied with God for its
only judge, and neither to seek the praises nor to dread the charges of any
other, yet those are worthy of double praise, who, knowing that they owe
their conscience to God alone as the judge, yet desire that their doings
should be approved also by their brethren themselves. It is no wonder,
brother Cyprian, that you should do this, who, with your usual modesty and
inborn industry, have wished that we should be found not so much judges of,
as sharers in, your counsels, so that we might find praise with you in your
doings while we approve them; and might be able to be fellow-heirs with you
in your good counsels, because we entirely accord with them. In the same
way we are all thought to have laboured in that in which we are all
regarded as allied in the same agreement of censure and discipline.

   2. For what is there either in peace so suitable, or in a war of
persecution so necessary, as to maintain the due severity of the divine
rigour? Which he who resists, will of necessity wander in the unsteady
course of affairs, and will be tossed hither and thither by the various and
uncertain storms of things; and the helm of counsel being, as it were,
wrenched from his hands he will drive the ship of the Church's safety among
the rocks; so that it would appear that the Church's safety can be no
otherwise secured, than by repelling any who set themselves against it as
adverse waves, and by maintaining the ever-guarded rule of discipline
itself as if it were the rudder of safety in the tempest. Nor is it now but
lately that this counsel has been considered by us, nor have these sudden
appliances against the wicked but recently occurred to us; but this is read
of among us as the ancient severity, the ancient faith, the ancient
discipline,(1) since the apostle would not have published such praise
concerning us, when he said "that your faith is spoken of throughout the
whole world"(2) unless already from thence that vigour had borrowed the
roots of faith from those times; from which praise and glory it is a very
great crime to have become degenerate.(3) For it is less disgrace never to
have attained to the heraldry of praise, than to have fallen from the
height of praise; it is a smaller crime not to have been honoured with a
good testimony, than to have lost the honour of good testimonies; it is
less discredit to have lain without the announcement of virtues, ignoble
without praise, than, disinherited of the faith,(4) to have lost our proper
praises. For those things which are proclaimed to the glory of any one,
unless they are maintained by anxious and careful pains, swell up into the
odium of the greatest crime.(5)

   3. That we are not saying this dishonestly, our former letters have
proved, wherein we have declared our opinion to you with a very plain
statement, both against those who had betrayed themselves as unfaithful by
the unlawful presentation of wicked certificates, as if they thought that
they would escape those esnaring nets of the devil; whereas, not less than
if they had approached to the wicked altars,(6) they were held fast by the
very fact that they had testified to him; and against those who had used
those certificates when made, although they had not been present when they
were made, since they had certainly asserted their presence by ordering
that they should be so written. For he is not guiltless of wickedness who
has bidden it to be done; nor is he unconcerned in the crime with whose
consent it is publicly spoken of, although it was not committed by him. And
since the whole mystery(7) of faith is understood to be contained in the
confession of the name of Christ, he who "seeks for deceitful tricks to
excuse himself, has denied Christ; and he who wants to appear to have
satisfied either edicts or laws put forth against the Gospel, has obeyed
those edicts by the very fact by which he wished to appear to have obeyed
them. Moreover, also, we have declared our faith and consent against those,
too, who had polluted their hands and their mouths with unlawful
sacrifices, whose own minds were before polluted; whence also their very
hands and mouths were polluted also.(8) Far be it from the Roman Church to
slacken her vigour with so profane a facility, and to loosen the nerves of
her severity by overthrowing the majesty of faith; so that, when the wrecks
of your ruined brethren are still not only lying, but are falling around,
remedies of a too hasty kind, and certainly not likely to avail, should be
afforded for communion; and by a false mercy, new wounds should be
impressed on the old wounds of their transgression; so that even repentance
should be snatched from these wretched beings, to their greater overthrow.
For where can the medicine of indulgence profit, if even the physician
himself, by intercepting repentance, makes easy way for new dangers, if he
only hides the wound, and does not suffer the necessary remedy of time to
close the scar? This is not to cure, but, if we wish to speak the truth, to
slay.(9)

   4. Nevertheless, you have letters agreeing with our letters from the
confessors, whom the dignity of their confession has still shut up here in
prison, and whom, for the Gospel contest, their faith has once already
crowned in a glorious confession; letters wherein they have maintained the
severity of the Gospel discipline, and have revoked the unlawful petitions,
so that they might not be a disgrace to the Church. Unless they had done
this, the ruins of Gospel discipline(10) would not easily be restored,
especially since it was to none so fitting to maintain the tenor of
evangelical vigour unimpaired, and its dignity, as to those who had given
themselves up to be tortured and cut to pieces by raging men on behalf of
the Gospel, that they might not deservedly forfeit the honour of martyrdom,
if, on the occasion of martyrdom, they had wished to be betrayers of the
Gospel. For he who does not guard what he has, in that condition whereon he
possesses it, by violating the condition whereon he possesses it, loses
what he possessed.

   5. In which matter we ought to give you also, and we do give you,
abundant thanks, that you have brightened the darkness of their prison by
your letters; that you came to them in whatever way you could enter; that
you refreshed their minds, robust in their own faith and confession, by
your addresses and letters; that, following up their felicities with worthy
praises, you have inflamed them to a much more ardent desire of heavenly
glory; that you urged them forward; that you animated, by the power of your
discourse, those who, as we believe and hope, will be victors by and by; so
that although all may seem to come from the faith of those who confess, and
from the divine mercy, yet they seem in their martyrdom to have become in
some sort debtors to you. But once more, to return to the point whence our
discourse appears to have digressed, you shall find subjoined the sort of
letters that we also sent to Sicily; although upon us is incumbent a
greater necessity of delaying this affair; having, since the departure of
Fabian of most noble memory, had no bishop appointed as yet, on account of
the difficulties of affairs and times, who can arrange all things of this
kind, and who can take account of those who are lapsed, with authority and
wisdom. However, what you also have yourself declared in so important a
matter, is satisfactory to us, that the peace of the Church must first be
maintained; then, that an assembly for counsel being gathered together,
with bishops, presbyters, deacons, and confessors, as well as with the
laity who stand fast,(1) we should deal with the case of the lapsed. For it
seems extremely invidious and burdensome to examine into what seems to have
been committed by many, except by the advice of many; or that one should
give a sentence when so great a crime is known to have gone forth, and to
be diffused among so many; since that cannot be a firm decree which shall
not appear to have had the consent of very many.(2) Look upon almost the
whole world devastated, and observe that the remains and the ruins of the
fallen are lying about on every side, and consider that therefore an extent
of counsel is asked for, large in proportion as the crime appears to be
widely propagated. Let not the medicine be less than the wound, let not the
remedies be fewer than the deaths, that in the same manner as those who
fell, fell for this reason that they were too incautious with a blind
rashness, so those who strive to set in order this mischief should use
every moderation in counsels, lest anything done as it ought not to be,
should, as it were, be judged by all of no effect.

   6. Thus, with one and the same counsel, with the same prayers and
tears, let us, who up to the present time seem to have escaped the
destruction of these times of ours, as well as those who appear to have
fallen into those calamities of the time, entreat the divine majesty, and
ask peace for the Church's name. With mutual prayers, let us by turns
cherish, guard, arm one another; let us pray for the lapsed,(3) that they
may be raised up; let us pray for those who stand, that they may not be
tempted to such a degree as to be destroyed; let us pray that those who are
said to have fallen may acknowledge the greatness of their sin, and may
perceive that it needs no momentary nor over-hasty cure; let us pray that
penitence may follow also the effects of the pardon of the lapsed; that so,
when they have Understood their own crime, they may be willing to have
patience with us for a while, and no longer disturb the fluctuating
condition of the Church, lest they may seem themselves to have inflamed an
internal persecution for us, and the fact of their unquietness be added to
the heap of their sins. For modesty is very greatly fitting for them in
whose sins it is an immodest mind that is condemned. Let them indeed knock
at the doors, but assuredly let them not break them down; let them present
themselves at the threshold of the church, but certainly let them not leap
over it; let them watch at the gates of the heavenly camp, but let them be
armed with modesty, by which they perceive that they have been deserters;
let them resume the trumpet of their prayers, but let them not therewith
sound a point of war; let them arm themselves indeed with the weapons of
modesty, and let them resume the shield of faith, which they had put off by
their denial through the fear of death, but let those that are even now
armed believe that they are armed against their foe, the devil, not against
the Church, which grieves over their fall. A modest petition will much
avail them; a bashful entreaty, a necessary humility, a patience which is
not careless. Let them send tears as their ambassadors for their
sufferings; let groanings, brought forth from their deepest heart,
discharge the office of advocate, and prove their grief and shame for the
crime they have committed.

   7. Nay, if they shudder at the magnitude of the guilt incurred; if with
a truly medicinal hand they deal with the deadly wound of their heart and
conscience and the deep recesses of the subtle mischief, let them blush
even to ask; except, again, that it is a matter of greater risk and shame
not to have besought the aid of peace. But let all this be in the
sacrament;(1) in the law of their very entreaty let consideration be had
for the time; let it be with downcast entreaty, with subdued petition,
since he also who is besought ought to be bent, not provoked; and as the
divine clemency ought to be looked to, so also ought the divine censure;
and as it is written, "I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst
me,"(2) so it is written, "Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I
also deny before my Father and before His angels."(3) For God, as He is
merciful, so He exacts obedience to His precepts, and indeed carefully
exacts it; and as He invites to the banquet, so the man that hath not a
wedding garment He binds hands and feet, and casts him out beyond the
assembly of the saints. He has prepared heaven, but He has also prepared
held He has prepared places of refreshment, but He has also prepared
eternal punishment. He has prepared the light that none can approach unto,
but He has also prepared the vast and eternal gloom of perpetual night.

   8. Desiring to maintain the moderation of this middle course in these
matters, we for a long time, and indeed many of us, and, moreover, with
some of the bishops who are near to us and within reach, and some whom,
placed afar off, the heat of the persecution had driven out from other
provinces,(5) have thought that nothing new was to be done before the
appointment of a bishop l but we believe that the care of the lapsed must
be moderately dealt with, so that, in the meantime, whilst the grant of a
bishop is withheld from us(6) by God, the cause of such as are able to bear
the delays of postponement should be kept in suspense; but of such as
impending death does not suffer to bear the delay, having repented and
professed a detestation of their deeds with frequency; if with tears, if
with groans, if with weeping they have betrayed the signs of a grieving and
truly penitent spirit, when there remains, as far as man can tell, no hope
of living; to them, finally, such cautious and careful help should be
ministered, God Himself knowing what He will do with such, and in what way
He will examine the balance of His judgment; while we, however, take
anxious care that neither ungodly men should praise our smooth facility,
nor truly penitent men accuse our severity as cruel. We bid you, most
blessed and glorious father, ever heartily farewell in the Lord; and have
us in memory.(7)

EPISTLE XXXI.(8)

TO THE CARTHAGINIAN CLERGY, ABOUT THE LETTERS SENT TO ROME, AND RECEIVED
THENCE.

ARGUMENT.--THE CARTHAGINIAN CLERGY ARE REQUESTED TO TAKE CARE THAT THE
LETTERS OF THE ROMAN CLERGY AND CYPRIAN'S ANSWER ARE COMMUNICATED.

   Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. That
you, my beloved brethren, might know what letters I have sent to the clergy
acting(9) at Rome, and what they have replied to me, and, moreover, what
Moyses and Maximus, the presbyters, and Rufinus and Nicostratus, the
deacons, and the rest of the confessors that with them are kept in prison,
replied likewise to my letters, I have sent you copies to read. Do you take
care, with as much diligence as you can, that what I have written, and what
they have replied, be made known to our brethren. And, moreover, if any
bishops from foreign places,(10) my colleagues, or presbyters, or deacons,
should be present, or should arrive among you, let them hear all these
matters from you; and if they wish to transcribe copies of the letters and
to take them to their own people, let them have the opportunity of
transcribing them; although I have, moreover, bidden Saturus the reader,
our brother, to give liberty of copying them to any individuals who wish
it; so that, in ordering, for the present, the condition of the Church in
any manner, an agreement, one and faithful, may be observed by all. But
about the other matters which were to be dealt with, as I have also written
to several of my colleagues, we will more fully consider them in a common
council, when, by the Lord's permission, we shall begin to assemble into
one place. I bid you, brethren, beloved and longed-for, ever heartily
farewell. Salute the brotherhood. Fare ye well.

EPISTLE XXXII.(11)

TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE, ABOUT THE ORDINATION OF AURELIUS AS A READER.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN TELLS THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE THAT AURELIUS THE CONFESSOR
HAS BEEN ORDAINED A READER BY HIM, AND COMMENDS, BY THE  WAY, THE CONSTANCY
OF HIS VIRTUE AND HIS MIND, WHEREBY HE WAS EVEN DESERVING OF A HIGHER
DEGREE IN THE CHURCH.

   1. Cyprian to the elders and deacons, and to the whole people,
greeting. In ordinations of the clergy, beloved brethren, we usually
consult you beforehand, and weigh the character and deserts of individuals,
with the general advice.(1) But human testimonies must not be waited for
when the  divine approval precedes. Aurelius, our brother, an illustrious
youth, already approved by the Lord, and dear to God, in years still very
young, but, in the praise of virtue and of faith, advanced; inferior in the
natural abilities of his age, but superior in the honour he has merited,--
has contended here in a double conflict, having twice confessed and twice
been glorious in the victory of his confession, both when he conquered in
the course and was banished, and when at length he fought in a severer
conflict, he was triumphant and victorious in the battle of suffering. As
often as the adversary wished to call forth the servants of God, so often
this prompt and brave soldier both fought and conquered. It had been a
slight matter, previously to have engaged under the eyes of a few when he
was banished; he deserved also in the forum to engage with a more
illustrious virtue so that, after overcoming the magistrates, he might also
triumph over the proconsul, and, after exile, might vanquish tortures also.
Nor can I discover what I ought to speak most of in him,--the glory of his
wounds or the modesty of his character; that he is distinguished by the
honour of his virtue, or praiseworthy for the admirableness of his modesty.
He is both so excellent in dignity and so lowly in humility, that it seems
that he is divinely reserved as one who should be an example to the rest
for ecclesiastical discipline, of the way in which the servants of God
should in confession conquer by their courage, and, after confession, be
conspicuous for their character.

   2. Such a one, to be estimated not by his years but by his deserts,
merited higher degrees of clerical ordination and larger increase. But, in
the meantime, I judged it well, that he should begin with the office of
reading; because nothing is more suitable for the voice which has confessed
the Lord in a glorious utterance, than to sound Him forth in the solemn
repetition of the divine lessons; than, after the sublime words which spoke
out the witness of Christ, to read the Gospel of Christ whence martyrs are
made; to come to the desk after the scaffold; there to have been
conspicuous to the multitude of the Gentiles, 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, then, most
beloved brethren, that this man has been ordained by me and by my
colleagues who were then present. I know that you will both gladly welcome
these tidings, and that you desire that as many such as possible may be
ordained in our church. And since joy is always hasty, and gladness can
bear no delay, he reads on the Lord's day, in the meantime, for me; that
is, he has made a beginning of peace, by solemnly entering on his office of
a reader.(2) Do you frequently be urgent in supplications, and assist my
prayers by yours, that the Lord's mercy favouring us may soon restore both
the priest(3) safe to his people, and the martyr for a reader with the
priest. I bid you, beloved brethren in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ,
ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XXXIII.(4)

TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE, ABOUT THE ORDINATION OF CELERINUS AS READER.

ARGUMENT.--THIS LETTER IS ABOUT THE SAME IN PURPORT WITH THE PRECEDING,
EXCEPT THAT HE LARGELY COMMENDS THE CONSTANCY OF CELERINUS IN HIS
CONFESSION OF THE FAITH. MOREOVER, THAT BOTH OF THESE LETTERS WERE WRITTEN
DURING HIS RETREAT, IS SUFFICIENTLY INDICATED BY THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE
CONTEXT.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, and to the whole people, his
brethren in the Lord, greeting. The divine benefits, beloved brethren,
should be acknowledged and embraced, wherewith the Lord has condescended to
embellish and illustrate His Church in our times by granting a respite to
His good confessors and His glorious martyrs, that they who had grandly
confessed Christ should afterwards adorn Christ's clergy in ecclesiastical
ministries. Exult, therefore, and rejoice with me on receiving my letter,
wherein I and my colleagues who were then present mention to you Celerinus,
our brother, glorious alike for his courage and his character, as added to
our clergy, not by human recommendation, but by divine condescension; who,
when he hesitated to yield to the Church, was constrained by her own
admonition and exhortation, in a vision by night, not to refuse our
persuasions; and she had more power, and constrained him, because it was
not right, nor was it becoming, that he should be without ecclesiastical
honour, whom the Lord honoured with the dignity of heavenly glory.(5)

   2. This man was the first in the struggle of our days; he was the
leader among Christ's soldiers; he, in the midst of the burning beginnings
of the persecution, engaged with the very chief and author of the
disturbance, in conquering with invincible firmness the adversary of his
own conflict.(1) He made a way for others to conquer; a victor with no
small amount of wounds, but triumphant by a miracle, with the long-abiding
and permanent penalties of a tedious conflict. For nineteen days, shut up
in the close guard of a dungeon, he was racked and in irons; but although
his body was laid in chains, his spirit remained free and at liberty. His
flesh wasted away by the long endurance of hunger and thirst; but God fed
his soul, that lived in faith and virtue, with spiritual nourishments. He
lay in punishments, the stronger for his punishments; imprisoned, greater
than those that imprisoned him; lying prostrate, but loftier than those who
stood; as bound, and firmer titan the links which bound him; judged, and
more sublime than those who judged him; and although his feet were bound on
the rack, yet the serpent was trodden on and ground down and vanquished. In
his glorious body shine the bright evidences of his wounds; their manifest
traces show forth, and appear on the man's sinews and limbs, worn out with
tedious wasting away.(2) Great things are they--marvelIous things are they-
-which the brotherhood may hear of his virtues and of his praises. And
should any one appear like Thomas, who has little faith in what he hears,
the faith of the eyes is not wanting, so that what one hears he may also
see. In the servant of God, the glory of the wounds made the victory; the
memory of the scars preserves that glory.

   3. Nor is that kind of title to glories in the case of Celerinus, our
beloved, an unfamiliar and novel thing. He is advancing in the footsteps of
his kindred; he rivals his parents and relations in equal honours of divine
condescension. His grandmother, Celerina, was some time since crowned with
martyrdom. Moreover, his paternal and maternal uncles, Laurentius and
Egnatius, who themselves also were once warring in the camps of the world,
but were true and spiritual soldiers of God, casting down the devil by the
confession of Christ, merited palms and crowns from the Lord by their
illustrious passion. We always offer sacrifices for them,(3) as you
remember, as often as we celebrate the passions and days of the martyrs in
the annual commemoration. Nor could he, therefore, be degenerate and
inferior whom this family dignity and a generous nobility provoked, by
domestic examples of virtue and faith. But if in a worldly family it is a
matter of heraldry and of praise to be a  patrician, of bow much greater
praise and honour is it to become of noble rank in the celestial heraldry!
I cannot tell whom I should call more blessed,--whether those ancestors,
for a posterity so illustrious, or him, for an origin so glorious. So
equally between them does the divine condescension flow, and pass to and
fro, that, just as the dignity of their offspring brightens their crown, so
the sublimity of his ancestry illuminates his glory.

   4. When this man, beloved brethren, came to us with such condescension
of the Lord, illustrious by the testimony and wonder of the very man who
had persecuted him, what else behoved to be done except that he should be
placed on the pulpit,(4) that is, on the tribunal of the Church; that,
resting on the loftiness of a higher station, and conspicuous to the whole
people for the brightness of his honour, he should read the precepts and
Gospel of the Lord, which he so bravely and faithfully follows? Let the
voice that has confessed the Lord daily be heard in those things which the
Lord spoke. Let it be seen whether there is any further degree to which he
can be advanced in the Church. There is nothing in which a confessor can do
more good to the brethren than that, while the reading of the Gospel is
heard from his lips, every one who   hears should imitate the faith of the
reader. He should have been associated with Aurelius in reading; with whom,
moreover, he was associated in the alliance of divine honour; with whom, in
all the insignia of virtue and praise, he had been united. Equal both, and
each like to the other, in proportion as they were sublime in glory, in
that proportion they were humble in modesty. As they were lifted up by
divine condescension, so they were lowly in their own peacefulness and
tranquillity, and equally affording examples to every one of virtues and
character, and fitted both for conflict and for peace; praiseworthy in the
former for strength, in the latter for modesty.

   5. In such servants the Lord rejoices; in confessors of this kind He
glories,--whose way and conversation is so advantageous to the announcement
of their glory, that it affords to others a teaching of discipline. For
this purpose Christ has willed them to remain long here in the Church; for
this purpose He has kept them safe, snatched from the midst of death,--a
kind of resurrection, so to speak, being wrought on their behalf; so that,
while nothing is seen by the brethren loftier in honour, nothing more lowly
in humility, the way of life of the brotherhood s may accompany these same
persons. Know, then, that these for the present are appointed readers,
because it was fitting that the candle should be placed in a candlestick,
whence it may give light to all, and that their glorious countenance should
be established in a higher place, where, beheld by all the surrounding
brotherhood, they may give an incitement of glory to the beholders. But
know that I have already purposed the honour of the presbytery for them,
that so they may be honoured with the same presents as the presbyters, and
may share the monthly divisions(1) in equalled quantities, to sit with us
hereafter in their advanced and strengthened years; although in nothing can
he seem to be inferior in the qualities of age who has consummated his age
by the dignity of his glory. I bid you, brethren, beloved and earnestly
longed-for, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XXXIV.(2)

TO THE SAME, ABOUT THE ORDINATION OF NUMIDICUS AS PRESBYTER.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN TELLS THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE THAT NUMIDICUS HAS BEEN
ORDAINED BY HIM PRESBYTER; AND BRIEFLY COMMENDS HIS WORTH.

   Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, and to the whole people, his
brethren, very dear and longed-for, greeting. That which belongs, dear-est
brethren, both to the common joy and to the greatest glory of our Church
ought to be told to you; for you must know that I have been admonished and
instructed by divine condescension, that Numidicus the presbyter should be
appointed in the number of Carthaginian presbyters, and should sit with us
among the clergy,--a man illustrious by the brightest light of confession,
exalted in the honour both of virtue and of faith; who by his exhortation
sent before himself an abundant number of martyrs, slain by stones and by
the flames, and who beheld with joy his wife abiding by his side, burned (I
should rather say, preserved) together with the rest. He himself, half
consumed, overwhelmed with stones, and left for dead,--when afterwards his
daughter, with the anxious consideration of affection, sought for the
corpse of her father,--was found half dead, was drawn out and revived, and
remained unwillingly(3) from among the companions whom he himself had sent
before. But the reason of his remaining behind, as we see, was this: that
the Lord might add him to our clergy, and might adorn with glorious priests
the number of our presbyters that had been desolated by the lapse of
some.(4) And when God permits, he shall be advanced to a larger office in
his region, when, by the Lord's protection, we have come into your presence
once more. In the meantime, let what is revealed be done, that we receive
this gift of God with thanksgiving, hoping from the Lord's mercy more
ornaments of the same kind, that so the strength of His Church being
renewed, He may make men so meek and lowly to flourish in the honour of our
assembly. I bid you, brethren, very dear and longed-for, ever heartily
farewell.

EPISTLE XXXV.(5)

TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING THE CARE OF THE POOR AND STRANGERS.

ARGUMENT.--HE CAUTIONS THEM AGAINST NEGLECTING THE WIDOWS, THE SICK, OR THE
POOR, OR STRANGERS.

   Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his beloved brethren, greeting.
In safety, by God's grace, I greet you, beloved brethren, desiring soon to
come to you, and to satisfy the wish as well of myself and you, as of all
the brethren. It behoves me also, however, to have regard to the common
peace, and, in the meantime, although with weariness of spirit, to be
absent from you, lest my presence should provoke the jealousy and violence
of the heathens, and I should be the cause of breaking the peace, who ought
rather to be careful for the quiet of all. When, therefore, you write that
matters are arranged, and that I ought to come, or if the Lord should
condescend to intimate it to me before, then I will come to you. For where
could I be better or more joyful than there where the Lord willed me both
to believe and to grow up? I request that you will diligently take care of
the widows, and of the sick, and of all the poor. Moreover, you may supply
the expenses for strangers, if any should be indigent, from my own portion,
which I have left with Rogatianus, our fellow-presbyter;(6) which portion,
lest it should be all appropriated, I have supplemented by sending to the
same by Naricus the acolyte another share, so that the sufferers may be
more largely and promptly dealt with. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever
heartily farewell; and have me in remembrance. Greet your brotherhood in my
name, and tell them to be mindful of me.

EPISTLE XXXVI.(7)

TO THE CLERGY, BIDDING THEM SHOW EVERY KINDNESS TO THE CONFESSORS IN
PRISON.

ARGUMENT.--HE EXHORTS HIS CLERGY THAT EVERY KINDNESS AND CARE SHOULD BE
EXERCISED TOWARDS THE CONFESSORS, AS WELL TOWARDS THOSE WHO WERE ALIVE, AS
THOSE WHO   DIED, IN PRISON; THAT THE DAYS OF THEIR DEATH SHOULD BE
CAREFULLY NOTED, FOR THE PURPOSE OF CELEBRATING THEIR MEMORY ANNUALLY; AND,
FINALLY, THAT THEY SHOULD NOT FORGET THE POOR ALSO.

   1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting.
Although I know, dearest brethren, that you have frequently been admonished
in my letters to manifest all care for those who with a glorious voice have
confessed the Lord, and are confined in prison; yet, again and again, I
urge it upon you, that no consideration be wanting to them to whose glory
there is nothing wanting. And I wish that the circumstances of the place
and of my station would permit me to present myself at this time with them;
promptly and gladly would I fulfil all the duties of love towards our most
courageous brethren in my appointed ministry. But I beseech you, let your
diligence be the representative of my duty, and do all those things which
behove to be done in respect of those whom the divine condescension has
rendered illustrious in such merits of their faith and virtue. Let there be
also a more zealous watchfulness and care bestowed upon the bodies of all
those who, although they were not tortured in prison, yet depart thence by
the glorious exit of death. For neither is their virtue nor their honour
too little for them also to be allied with the blessed martyrs. As  far as
they could, they bore whatever they were prepared and equipped to bear. He
who under the eyes of God has offered himself to tortures and to death, has
suffered whatever he was  willing to suffer; for it was not he that was
wanting to the tortures, but the tortures that were wanting to him.
"Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my
Father which is in heaven,"(1) saith the Lord. They have confessed Him "He
that endureth  to the end, the same shall be saved,"(2) saith the   Lord.
They have endured and have carried the   uncorrupted and unstained merits
of their virtues through, even unto the end. And, again, it is written, "Be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."(3) They
have persevered in their faithfulness, and stedfastness, and
invincibleness, even unto death. When to the willingness and the confession
of the name in prison and in chains is added also the conclusion of dying,
the glory of the martyr is consummated.

   2. Finally, also, take note of their days on which they depart, that we
may celebrate their commemoration among the memorials of the martyrs,(4)
although Tertullus, our most faithful and devoted brother, who, in addition
to the other solicitude and care which he shows to the brethren in all
service of labour, is not wanting besides in that respect in any care of
their bodies, has written, and does write and intimate to me the days, in
which our blessed brethren in prison pass by the gate of a glorious death
to their immortality; and there are celebrated here by us oblations and
sacrifices for their commemorations, which things, with the Lord's
protection, we shall soon celebrate with you. Let your care also (as I have
already often written) and your diligence not be wanting to the poor,--to
such, I mean, as stand fast in the faith and bravely fight with us, and
have not left the camp of Christ; to whom, indeed, we should now show a
greater love and care, in that they are neither constrained by poverty nor
prostrated by the tempest of persecution, but faithfully serve with the
Lord, and have given an example of faith to the other poor. I bid you,
brethren beloved, and greatly longed-for, ever heartily farewell; and
remember me. Greet the brotherhood in my name. Fare ye well.

EPISTLE XXXVII.(5)

TO CALDONIUS, HERCULANUS, AND OTHERS, ABOUT THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF
FELICISSIMUS.

ARGUMENT.--FELICISSIMUS, TOGETHER WITH HIS COMPANIONS IN SEDITION, IS TO BE
RESTRAINED FROM THE COMMUNION OF ALL.

   1. Cyprian to Caldonius and Herculanus, his colleagues, also to
Rogatianus and Numidicus, his fellow-presbyters, greeting. I have been
greatly grieved, dearest brethren, at the receipt of your letter, that
although I have always proposed to myself and wished to keep all our
brotherhood safe, and to preserve the flock unharmed, as charity requires,
you tell me now that Felicissimus has been attempting many things with
wickedness and craft; so that, besides his old frauds and plundering, of
which I had formerly known a good deal, he has now, moreover, tried to
divide with the bishop a portion of the people; that is, to separate the
sheep from the shepherd, and sons from their parents, and to scatter the
members of Christ. And although I sent you as my substitutes to discharge
the necessities of our brethren, with funds, and if any, moreover, wished
to exercise their crafts, to assist their wishes with such an addition as
might be sufficient, and at the same time also to take note of their ages
and conditions and deserts,--that I also, upon whom falls the charge of
knowing all of them thoroughly, might promote any that were worthy and
humble and meek to the offices of the ecclesiastical administration;--he
has interfered, and directed that  no one should be relieved, and that
those things which I had desired should not be ascertained by careful
examination; he has also threatened our brethren, who had first approached
to be relieved, with a wicked exercise of power, and with a violent dread
that those who desired to obey me should not communicate with him in
death.(1)

   2. And since, after all these things, neither moved by the honour of my
station, nor shaken by your authority and presence, but of his own impulse,
disturbing the peace of the brethren he hath rushed forth with many more,
and asserted himself as a leader of a faction and chief of a sedition with
a hasty madness--in which respect, indeed, I congratulate several of the
brethren that they have withdrawn from this boldness, and have rather
chosen to consent with you, so that they may remain with the Church, their
mother, and receive their stipends from the bishop who dispenses them,
which, indeed, I know for certain, that others also will peaceably do, and
will quickly withdraw from their rash error,--in the meantime, since
Felicissimus has threatened that they should not communicate with him in
death(2) who had obeyed us, that is, who communicated with us, let him
receive the sentence which he first of all declared, that he may know that
he is excommunicated by us; inasmuch as he adds to his frauds and rapines,
which we have known by the clearest truth, the crime also of adultery,
which our brethren, grave men, have declared that they have discovered, and
have asseverated that they will prove; all which things we shall then
judicially examine, when, with the Lord's permission, we shall assemble in
one place with many of our colleagues. But Augendus also, who, considering
neither his bishop nor his Church, has equally associated himself with him
in this conspiracy and faction, if he should further persevere with him,
let him bear the sentence which that factiou and impetuous man has provoked
on himself. Moreover, whoever shall ally himself with his conspiracy and
faction, let him know that he shall no  communicate in the Church with us,
since of his own accord he has preferred to be separated from the Church.
Read this letter of mine to our brethren, and also transmit it to Carthage
to the clergy, the names  being added of those who have joined themselves
with Felicissimus. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell; and
remember me. Fare ye well.

EPISTLE XXXVIII.(3)

THE LETTER OF CALDONIUS, HERCULANUS, AND OTHERS, ON THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF
FELICISSIMUS WITH HIS PEOPLE.

ARGUMENT.--CALDONIUS, HERCULANUS, AND OTHERS CARRY INTO EFFECT WHAT THE
PRECEDING LETTER HAD BIDDEN THEM.

   Caldonius, with Herculanus and Victor, his colleagues, also with
Rogatianus and Numidicus, presbyters.(4) We have rejected Felicissimus and
Augendus from communion; also Repostus from among the exiles, and Irene of
the Blood-stained ones;(5) and Paula the sempstress; which you ought to
know from my subscription; also we have rejected Sophronius and Soliassus
(budinarius),(6)--himself also one of the exiles.

EPISTLE XXXIX.(7)

TO THE PEOPLE, CONCERNING FIVE SCHISMATIC PRESBYTERS OF THE FACTION OF
FELICISSIMUS.

ARGUMENT.--IN LIKE MANNER, AS IN THE EPISTLE BUT ONE BEFORE THIS, CYPRIAN
TOLD THE CLERGY, SO NOW HE TELLS THE PEOPLE, THAT FELICISSIMUS IS TO BE
AVOIDED, TOGETHER WITH FIVE PRESBYTERS OF HIS FACTION, WHO NOT ONLY GRANTED
PEACE TO THE LAPSED WITHOUT ANY DISCRIMINATION, BUT STIRRED UP SEDITION AND
SCHISM AGAINST HIMSELF.

   1. Cyprian to the whole people, greeting. Although, dearest brethren,
Virtius,(8) a most faithful and upright presbyter, and also Rogatianus and
Numidicus, presbyters, confessors, and illustrious by the glory of the
divine condescension, and also the deacons, good men and devoted to the
ecclesiastical administration in all its duties, with the other ministers,
afford you the full attention of their presence, and do not cease to
confirm individuals by their assiduous exhortations, and, moreover, to
govern and reform the minds of the lapsed by their wholesome counsels, yet,
as much as I can, I admonish, and as I can, I visit you with my letters. By
my letters I say, dearest brethren; for the malignity and treachery of
certain of the presbyters has accomplished this, that I should not be
allowed to come to you before Easter-day; since mindful of their
conspiracy, and retaining that ancient venom against my episcopate, that
is, against your suffrage and God's judgment, they renew their old attack
upon me, and once more begin their sacrilegious machinations with their
accustomed craft. And, indeed, of God's providence, neither by our wish nor
desire, nay, although we were forgiving and silent, they have suffered the
punishment which they had deserved; so that, not cast out by us, they of
their own accord have cast themselves out. They themselves, before their
own conscience, have passed sentence on themselves in accordance with your
suffrages and the divine. These conspirators and evil men of their own
accord have driven themselves from the Church.

   2. Now it has appeared whence came the faction of Felicissimus; on what
root and by what strength it stood. These men supplied in former times
encouragements and exhortations to certain confessors, not to agree with
their bishop, not to maintain the ecclesiastical discipline with faith and
quietness according to the Lord's precepts, not to keep the glory of their
confession with an uncorrupt and unspotted conversation. And lest it should
be too little to have corrupted the minds of certain confessors, and to
have wished to arm a portion of our broken fraternity against God's
priesthood, they have now turned their attention with their envenomed
deceitfulness to the ruin of the lapsed, to turn away from the healing of
their wound the sick and the wounded, and those who, by the misfortune of
their fall, are less fit and less sturdy to take stronger counsel; and
invite them, by the falsehood of a fallacious peace, to a fatal rashness,
leaving off prayers and supplications, whereby, with long and continual
satisfaction, the Lord is to be appeased.

   3. But I pray you, brethren, watch against the snares of the devil,
and, taking care for your own salvation, be diligently on your guard
against this death-bearing fallacy. This is another persecution and another
temptation. Those five presbyters are none other than the five leaders who
were lately associated with the magistrates in an edict, that they might
overthrow our faith, that they might turn away the feeble hearts of the
brethren to their deadly nets by the prevarication of the truth. Now the
same scheme, the same overturning, is again brought about by the five
presbyters, linked with Felicissimus, to the destruction of salvation, that
God should not be besought, and that he who has denied Christ should not
appeal for mercy to the same Christ whom he had denied; that after the
fault of the crime, repentance also should be taken away; and that the Lord
should not be appeased through bishops and priests, but that the Lord's
priests being. forsaken, a new tradition of a sacrilegious appointment
should arise, contrary to the evangelical discipline. And although it was
once arranged as well by us as by the confessors and the city(1) clergy,
and moreover by all the bishops appointed either in our province or beyond
the sea,(2) that no novelty should be introduced in respect of the case of
the lapsed unless we all assembled into one place, and our counsels being
compared, should decide upon a moderate sentence, tempered alike with
discipline and with mercy;--against this our counsel they have rebelled,
and all priestly authority and power is destroyed by factious conspiracies.

   4. What sufferings do I now endure, dearest brethren, that I myself am
not able to come to you at the present juncture, that I myself cannot
approach you each one, that I myself cannot exhort you according to the
teaching of the Lord and of His Gospel! An exile of, now, two years(3) was
not sufficient, and a mournful separation from you, from your countenance,
and from your sight,--continual grief and lamentation, which, in my
loneliness without you, breaks me to pieces with my constant mourning, nor
my tears flowing day and night, that there is not even an opportunity for
the priest, whom you made with so much love and eagerness, to greet you,
nor to be enfolded in your embraces. This greater grief is added to my worn
spirit, that in the midst of so much solicitude and necessity I am not able
myself to hasten to you, since, by the threats and by the snares of
perfidious men, we are anxious that on our coming a greater tumult may not
arise there; and so, although the bishop ought to be careful for peace and
tranquillity in all things, he himself should seem to have afforded
material for sedition, and to have embittered persecution anew. Hence,
however, beloved brethren, I not only admonish but counsel you, not rashly
to trust to mischievous words, nor to yield an easy consent to deceitful
sayings, nor to take darkness for light, night for day, hunger for food,
thirst for drink, poison for medicine, death for safety. Let not the age
nor the authority deceive you of those who, answering to the ancient
wickedness of the two elders;(4) as they attempted to corrupt and violate
the chaste Susannah,(5) are thus also attempting, with their adulterous
doctrines, to corrupt the chastity of the Church and violate the truth of
the Gospel.

   5. The Lord cries aloud, saying, "Hearken not unto the words of the
false prophets, for the visions of their own hearts deceive them. They
speak, but not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say to them that despise
the word of the Lord, Ye shall have peace."(1) They are now offering peace
who have not peace themselves. They are promising to bring back and recall
the lapsed into the Church, who themselves have departed from the Church.
There is one God, and Christ is one, and there is one Church, and one chair
founded upon the rock by the word of the Lord.(2) Another altar cannot be
constituted nor a new priesthood be made, except the one altar and the one
priesthood. Whosoever gathereth elsewhere, scattereth. Whatsoever is
appointed by human madness, so that the divine disposition is violated, is
adulterous, is impious, is sacrilegious. Depart far from the contagion of
men of this kind. and flee from their words, avoiding them as a cancer and
a plague, as the Lord warns you and says, "They are blind leaders of the
blind. But if the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the
ditch."(3) They intercept your prayers, which you pour forth with us to God
day and night, to appease Him with a righteous satisfaction. They intercept
your tears with which you wash away the guilt of the sin you have
committed; they intercept the peace which you truly and faithfully ask from
the mercy of the Lord; and they do not know that it is written, "And that
prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, that hath spoken to turn you away from
the Lord your God, shall be put to death."(4) Let no one, beloved brethren,
make you to err from the ways of the Lord; let no one snatch you,
Christians, from the Gospel of Christ; let no one take sons of the Church
away from the Church; let them perish alone for themselves who have wished
to perish; let them remain outside the Church alone who have departed from
the Church; let them anoia be without bishops who have rebelled against
bishops; let them alone undergo the penalties of their conspiracies who
formerly, according to your votes, and now according to God's judgment,
have deserved to undergo the sentence of their own conspiracy and
malignity.

   6. The Lord warns us in His Gospel, saying, "Ye reject the commandment
of God, that ye may establish your own tradition."(5) Let them who reject
the commandment of God and endeavour to keep their own tradition be bravely
and firmly rejected by you; let one downfall be sufficient for the lapsed;
let no one by his fraud hurl down those who wish to rise; let no one cast
down more deeply and depress those who are down, on whose behalf we pray
that they may be raised up by God's hand and arm; let no one turn away from
all hope of safety those who are half alive and entreating that they may
receive their former health; let no one extinguish every light of the way
of salvation to those that are wavering in the darkness of their lapse. The
apostle instructs us, saying, "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not
to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ and His doctrine, he is
lifted up with foolishness: from such withdraw thyself."(6) And again he
says, "Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things
cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye
therefore partakers with them."(7) There is no reason that you should be
deceived with vain words, and begin to be partakers of their depravity.
Depart from such, I entreat you, and acquiesce in our counsels, who daily
pour out for you continual prayers to the Lord, who desire that you should
be recalled to the Church by the clemency of the Lord, who pray for the
fullest peace from God, first for the mother, and then for her children.
Join also your petitions and prayers with our prayers and petitions; mingle
your tears with our wailings. Avoid the wolves who separate the sheep from
the shepherd; avoid the envenomed tongue of the devil, who from the
beginning of the world, always deceitful and lying, lies that he may
deceive, cajoles that he may injure, promises good that he may give evil,
promises life that he may put to death. Now also his words are evident, and
his poisons are plain. He promises peace, in order that peace may not
possibly be attained; he promises salvation, that he who has sinned may not
come to salvation; he promises a Church, when he so contrives that he who
believes him may utterly perish apart from the Church.

   7. It is now the occasion, dearly beloved brethren, both for you who
stand fast to persevere bravely, and to maintain your glorious stability,
which you kept in persecution with a continual firmness.; and if any of you
by the circumvention of the adversary have fallen, that in this second
temptation you should faithfully take counsel for your hope and your peace;
and in order that the Lord may pardon you, that you should not depart from
the priests of the Lord, since it is written, "And the man that will do
presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest or unto the judge that
shall be in those days, even that man shall die."(1) Of this persecution
this is the latest and final temptation, which itself also, by the Lord's
protection, shall quickly pass away; so that I shall be again presented to
you after Easter-day with my colleagues, who, being present, we shall be
able as well to arrange as to complete the matters which require to be done
according to your judgment and to the general advice of all of us as it has
been decided before.(2) But if anybody, refusing to repent and to make
satisfaction to God, shall yield to the party of Felicissimus and 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 bid you, dearest brethren, ever
heartily farewell, and that you plead with me in continual prayer that the
mercy of God may be entreated.

EPISTLE XL.(3)

TO CORNELIUS, ON HIS REFUSAL TO RECEIVE NOVATIAN'S ORDINATION.(4)

ARGUMENT.--THE MESSENGERS SENT BY NOVATIAN TO INTIMATE HIS ORDINATION TO
THE CHURCH OF CARTHAGE ARE REJECTED BY CYPRIAN.

   1. Cyprian to Cornelius, his brother, greeting. There have come to us,
beloved brother, sent by Novatian, Maximus the presbyter, and Augendus the
deacon, and a certain Machaeus and Longinus. But, as we discovered, as well
from the letters which they brought with them, as from their discourse and
declaration, that Novatian had been made bishop; disturbed by the
wickedness of an unlawful ordination made in opposition to the Catholic
Church, we considered at  once that they must be restrained from communion
with us; and having, in the meanwhile, refuted and repelled the things
which they pertinaciously and obstinately endeavoured to assert, I and
several of my colleagues, who had come together to me, were awaiting the
arrival of our colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus, whom we had lately sent
to you as ambassadors, and to our fellow-bishops, who were present at your
ordination,(5) in order that, when they came and reported the truth of the
matter, the wickedness of the adverse party might be quelled through them,
by greater authority and manifest proof. But there came, in addition,
Pompeius and Stephanus, our colleagues, who themselves also, by way of
instructing us thereon, put forward manifest proofs and testimonies in
conformity with their gravity and faithfulness, so that it was not even
necessary that those who had come, as sent by Novatian, should be heard any
further. And when in our solemn assembly(6) they burst in with invidious
abuse and turbulent clamour, demanding that the accusations, which they
said that they brought and would prove, should be publicly investigated by
us and by the people, we said that it was not consistent with our gravity
to suffer the honour of our colleague, who had already been chosen and
ordained and ap-proved by the laudable sentence of many, to be called into
question any further by the abusive voice of rivals. And because it would
be a long business to collect into a letter the matters in which they have
been refuted and repressed, and in which they have been manifested as
having caused heresy by their unlawful attempts, you shall hear everything
most fully from Primitivus our co-presbyter,(7) when he shall come to you.

   2. And lest their raging boldness should ever cease, they are striving
here also to distract the members of Christ into schismatical parties, and
to cut and tear the one body of the Catholic Church, so that, running about
from door to door, through the houses of many, or from city to city,
through certain districts, they seek for companions in their obstinacy and
error to join to themselves in their schism. To whom we have once given
this reply, nor shall we cease to command them to lay aside their
pernicious dissensions and disputes, and to be aware that it is an impiety
to forsake their Mother; and to acknowledge and understand that when a
bishop(8) is once made and approved by the testimony and judgment of his
colleagues and the people, another can by no means be appointed.(9) Thus,
if they consult their own interest peaceably and faithfully, if they
confess themselves to be maintainers of the Gospel of Christ, they must
return to the Church. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XLI.(10)

TO CORNELIUS, ABOUT CYPRIAN'S APPROVAL OF HIS ORDINATION, AND CONCERNING
FELICISSIMUS.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN EXCUSES HIMSELF FOR NOT HAVING WITHOUT HESITATION
BELIEVED IN THE ORDINATION OF CORNELIUS, UNTIL HE RECEIVED THE LETTERS OF
HIS COLLEAGUES CALDONIUS AND FORTUNATUS, WHICH FULLY TESTIFIED TO ITS
LEGITIMACY; AND INCIDENTALLY REPEATS, IN RESPECT OF THE CONTRARY FACTION OF
THE NOVATIAN PARTY,THAT HE DID NOT IN THE VERY FIRST INSTANCE GIVE HIS
ADHESION TO THAT, BUT RATHER TO CORNELIUS, EVEN TO THE EXTENT OF REFUSING
TO RECEIVE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST HIM.

   1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. As was fitting for God's
servants, and especially for upright and peaceable priests, dearest
brother, we recently sent our colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus, that
they might, not only by the persuasion of our letters, but by their
presence and the advice of all of you, strive and labour with all their
power to bring the members of the divided body into the unity of the
Catholic Church, and associate them into the bond of Christian charity. But
since the obstinate and inflexible pertinacity of the adverse party has not
only rejected the bosom and the embrace of its root and Mother, but even,
with a discord spreading and reviving itself worse and worse, has appointed
a bishop for itself, and, contrary to the sacrament once delivered of the
divine appointment and of Catholic Unity, has made an adulterous and
opposed head outside the Church; having received your letters as well as
those of our colleagues, at the coining also of our colleagues Pompeius and
Stephanus, good men and very dear to us, by whom all these things were
undoubtedly alleged and proved to us with general gladness,(1) in
conformity with the requirements alike of the sanctity and the truth of the
divine tradition and ecclesiastical institution, we have directed our
letters to you. Moreover, bringing these same things trader the notice of
our several colleagues throughout the province, we have bidden also that
our brethren, with letters from them, be directed to you.

   2. This has been done, although our mind and intention had been already
plainly declared to the brethren, and to the whole of the people in this
place, when, having received letters lately from both parties, we read your
letters, and intimated your ordination to the episcopate, in the ears of
every one. Moreover, remembering the common honour, and having respect for
the sacerdotal gravity and sanctity, we repudiated those things which from
the other party had been heaped together with bitter virulence into a
document transmitted to us; alike considering and weighing, that in so
great and so religious an assembly of brethren, in which God's priests were
sitting together, and His altar was set, they ought neither to be read nor
to be heard. For those things should not easily be put forward, nor
carelessly and rudely published, which may move a scandal by means of a
quarrelsome pen in the minds of the hearers, and confuse brethren, who are
placed far apart and dwelling across the sea, with uncertain opinions. Let
those beware, who, obeying either their own rage or lust, and unmindful of
the divine law and holiness, rejoice to throw abroad in the meantime things
which they cannot prove; and although they may not be successful in
destroying and ruining innocence, are satisfied with scattering stains upon
it with lying reports and false rumours. Assuredly, we should exert
ourselves, as it is fitting for prelates and priests to do, that such
things, when they are written by any, should be repudiated as far as we are
concerned. For otherwise, what will become of that which we learn and which
we declare to be laid down in Scripture: "Keep thy tongue from evil, and
thy lips from speaking guile?"(2) And elsewhere: "Thy mouth abounded in
malice, and thy tongue embraced deceit. Thou satest and spakest against thy
brother, and slanderedst thine own mother's son."(3) Also whist the apostle
says: "Let no corrupt communication proceed from thy mouth, but that which
is good to the edifying of faith, that it may minister grace unto the
hearers."(4) Further, we show what the right course of conduct to pursue
is,(5) if, when such things are written by the calumnious temerity of some,
we do not allow them to be read among us: and therefore, dearest brother,
when such letters came to me against you, even though they were the letters
of your co-presbyter sitting with you,(6) as they breathed a tone of
religious simplicity, and did not echo with any barkings of curses and
revilings, I ordered them to be read to the clergy and the people.

   3. But in desiring letters from our colleagues,(7) who were present at
your ordination at that place, we did not forget the ancient usage, nor did
we seek for any novelty. For it was sufficient for you to announce yourself
by letters(8) to have been made bishop, unless there had been a dissenting
faction on the other side, who by their slanderous and calumnious
fabrications disturbed the minds and perplexed the hearts of our
colleagues, as well as of several of the brethren. To set this matter at
rest, we judged it necessary to obtain thence the strong and decided
authority of our colleagues who wrote to us; and they, declaring the
testimony of their letters to be fully deserved by your character, and
life, and teaching, have deprived even your rivals, and those who delight
either in novelty or evil, of every scruple of doubt or of difference; and,
according to our advice weighed in wholesome reason, the minds of the
brethren tossing about in this sea have sincerely and decidedly approved
your priesthood. For this, my brother, we especially both labour after, and
ought to labour after, to be careful to maintain as much as we can the
unity delivered by the Lord, and through His apostles to us their
successors, and, as far as in us lies, to gather into the Church the
dispersed and wandering sheep which the wilful faction and heretical
temptation of some is separating from their Mother; those only being left
outside, who by their obstinacy and madness have persisted, and have been
unwilling to return to us; who themselves will have to give an account to
the Lord of the dissension and separation made by them, and of the Church
that they have forsaken.

   4. Bill, so far as pertains to the cause of certain presbyters here,
and of Felicissimus, that you may know what has been done here, our
colleagues have sent you letters subscribed by their own hand, that you may
learn, when you have heard the parties, from their letters what they have
thought and what they have pronounced. But you will do better,(1) brother,
if you will also bid copies of the letters which I had sent lately by our
colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus to you, to he read for the common
satisfaction, which I had written concerning the same Felicissimus and his
presbytery to the clergy there, and  also to the people, to be read to the
brethren  there; declaring your ordination, and the course of the whole
transaction, that so as well there as  here the brotherhood may be informed
of all  things by us. Moreover, I have here transmitted also copies of the
same by Mettius the sub-deacon, sent by me, and by Nicephorus the acolyte.
I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XLII.(2)

TO THE SAME, ON HIS HAVING SENT LETTERS TO TIlE CONFESSORS WHOM NOVATIAN
HAD SEDUCED.

ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THIS LETTER SUFFICIENTLY APPEARS FROM THE TITLE.
IT IS MANIFEST THAT THIS LETTER AND THE FOLLOWING WERE SENT BY ONE
MESSENGER.

   Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. I have though it both
obligatory on me, and necessary for you, dearest brother, to write a short
letter to the confessors who are there with you, and, seduced by the
obstinacy and depravity of Novatian and Novatus,(3) have departed from the
Church; in which letter I might induce them, for the sake of our mutual
affection, to return to their Mother, that is, to the Catholic Church. This
letter I have first of all entrusted to you by Mettius the sub-deacon for
your perusal, lest any one should pretend that I had written otherwise than
according to the contents of my letter. I have, moreover, charged the same
Mettius sent by me to you, that he should be guided by your decision; and
if you should think that this letter should be given to the confessors,
then that he should deliver it. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily
farewell.

EPISTLE XLIII.(4)

TO THE ROMAN CONFESSORS, THAT THEY SHOULD RETURN TO UNITY.

ARGUMENT.--HE EXHORTS THE ROMAN CONFESSORS WHO HAD BEEN SEDUCED BY THE
FACTION OF NOVATIAN AND NOVATUS, TO RETURN TO UNITY.

   Cyprian to Maximus and Nicostratus, and the other confessors, greeting.
As you have frequently gathered from my letters, beloved, what honour I
have ever observed in my mode of speaking for your confession, and what
love for the associated brotherhood; believe, I entreat you, and acquiesce
in these my letters, wherein I both write and with simplicity and fidelity
consult for you, and for your doings, and for your praise. For it weighs me
down and saddens me, and the intolerable grief of a smitten, almost
prostrate, spirit seizes me, when I find that you there, contrary to
ecclesiastical order, contrary to evangelical law, contrary to the unity of
the Catholic institution, had consented that another bishop should be
made.(5) That is what is neither right nor allowable to be done; that
another church should be set up; that Christ's members should be torn
asunder; that the one mind and body of the Lord's flock should be lacerated
by a divided emulation. I entreat that in you, at all events, that unlawful
rending of our brotherhood may not continue; but remembering both your
confession and the divine tradition, you may return to the Mother whence
you have gone forth; whence you came to the glory of confession with the
rejoicing of the same Mother. And think not that you are thus maintaining
the Gospel of Christ when you separate yourselves from the flock of Christ,
and from His peace and concord; since it is more fitting for glorious and
good soldiers to sit down within their own camp, and so placed within to
manage and provide for those things which are to be dealt with in common.
For as our unanimity and concord ought by no means to be divided, and
because we cannot forsake the Church and go outside her to come to you, we
beg and entreat you with what exhortations we can, rather to return to the
Church your Mother, and to our brotherhood. I bid you, dearest brethren,
ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XLIV.(1)

TO CORNELIUS, CONCERNING POLYCARP THE ADRUMETINE.

ARGUMENT.--HE EXCUSES HIMSELF IN THIS LETTER FOR WHAT HAD OCCURRED, IN
THAT, DURING THE TIME THAT HE WAS AT ADRUMETUM, LETTERS HAD BEEN SENT
THENCE BY THE CLERGY OF POLYCARP, NOT TO CORNELIUS, BUT TO THE ROMAN
CLERGY, NOTWITHSTANDING THAT PREVIOUSLY POLYCARP HIMSELF HAD WRITTEN RATHER
TO CORNELIUS. IT APPEARS TOLERABLY PLAIN FROM THE CONTEXT ITSELF THAT THIS
WAS WRITTEN AFTER THE PRECEDING ONES.

   1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. I have read your
letters, dearest brother, which you sent by Primitivus our co-presbyter, in
which I perceived that you were annoyed that, whereas letters from the
Adrumetine colony in the name of Polycarp were directed to you, yet after
Liberalis and I came to that place, letters began to be directed thence to
the presbyters and to the deacons.

   2. In respect of which I wish you to know, and certainly to believe,
that it was done from no levity or contempt. But when several of our
colleagues who had assembled into one place had determined that, while our
co-bishops Caldonius and Fortunatus were sent as ambassadors to you, all
things should be in the meantime suspended as they were, until the same
colleagues of ours, having reduced matters there to peace, or, having
discovered their truth. should return to us; the presbyters and deacons
abiding in the Adrumetine colony; in the absence of our co-bishop Polycarp,
were ignorant of what had been decided in common by us. But when we came
before them, and our purpose was understood, they themselves also began to
observe what the others did, so that the agreement of the churches abiding
there was in no respect broken.

   3. Some persons, however, sometimes disturb men's minds and spirits by
their words, in that they relate things otherwise than is the truth. For
we, who furnish every person who sails hence with a plan that they may sail
without any of-fence, know that we have exhorted them to acknowledge and
hold the root and matrix of the Catholic Church.(2) But since our province
is wide-spread, and has Numidia and Mauritania attached to it; lest a
schism made in the city should confuse the minds of the absent with
uncertain opinions, we decided--having obtained by means of the bishops the
truth of the matter, and having got a greater authority for the proof of
your ordination, and so at length every scruple being got rid of from the
breast of every one--that letters should be sent you by all who were placed
anywhere in the province; as in fact is done, that so the whole of our
colleagues might decidedly approve of and maintain both you and your
communion, that is as well to the unity of the Catholic Church as to its
charity. That all which has by God's direction come to pass, and that our
design has under Providence been forwarded, we rejoice.

   4. For thus as well the truth as the dignity of your episcopate has
been established in the most open light, and with the most manifest and
substantial approval; so that from the replies of our colleagues, who have
thence written to us, and from the account and from the testimonies of our
co-bishops Pompeius, and Stephanus, and Caldonius, and Fortunatus, both the
needful cause and the right order, and moreover the glorious innocence, of
your ordination might be known by all. That we, with the rest of our
colleagues, may steadily and firmly administer this office, and keep it in
the concordant unanimity of the Catholic Church, the divine condescension
will accomplish; so that the Lord who condescends to elect and appoint for
Himself priests in His Church, may protect them also when elected and
appointed by His good-will and help, inspiring them to govern, and
supplying both vigour for restraining the contumacy of the wicked, and
gentleness for cherishing the penitence of the lapsed. I bid you, dearest
brother, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XLV.(3)

CORNELIUS TO CYPRIAN, ON THE RETURN OF THE CONFESSORS TO UNITY.

ARGUMENT.--CORNELIUS INFORMS CYPRIAN OF THE SOLEMN RETURN OF THE CONFESSORS
TO THE CHURCH, AND DESCRIBES IT.

   1. Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting. In proportion to the
solicitude and anxiety that we sustained in respect of those confessors who
had been circumvented and almost deceived and alienated from the Church by
the craft and malice of that wily and subtle man,(4) was the joy with which
we were affected, and the thanks which we gave to Almighty God and to our
Lord Christ, when they, acknowledging their error, and perceiving the
poisoned cunning of the malignant man, as if of a serpent, came back, as
they with one heart profess, with singleness of will to the Church from
which they had gone forth. And first, indeed, our brethren of approved
faith, loving peace and desiring unity, announced that the swelling pride
of these men was already soothed;(1) yet there was no fitting assurance to
induce us easily to believe that they were thoroughly changed. But
afterwards, Urbanus and Sidonius the confessors came to our presbyters,
affirming that Maximus the confessor and presbyter, equally with
themselves, desired to return into the Church; but since many things had
preceded this which they had contrived, of which you also have been made
aware from our co-bishops and from my letters, so that faith could not
hastily be reposed in them, we determined to hear from their own mouth and
confession those things which they had sent by the messengers. And when
they came, and were required by the presbyters to give an account of what
they had done, and were charged with having very lately repeatedly sent
letters full of calumnies and reproaches, in their name, through all the
churches, and had disturbed nearly all the churches; they affirmed that
they had been deceived, and that they had not known what was in those
letters; that only through being misled they had also committed
schismatical acts, and been the authors of heresy, so that they suffered
hands to be imposed on him as if upon a bishop.(2) And when these and other
matters had been charged upon them, they entreated that they might be done
away and altogether discharged from memory.

   2. The whole of this transaction therefore being brought before me, I
decided that the presbytery(3) should be brought together; (for there were
present five bishops, who were also present to-day;) so that by well-
grounded counsel it might be determined with the consent of all what ought
to be observed in respect of their persons. And that you may know the
feeling of all, and the advice of each one, I decided also to bring to your
knowledge our various  opinions, which you will read subjoined. When these
things were done, Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, and several brethren who had
joined themselves to them, came to the presbytery, desiring with earnest
prayers that what had been done before might fall into oblivion, and no
mention might be made of it; and promising that henceforth, as though
nothing had been either done or said, all things on both sides being
forgiven, they would now exhibit to God a heart clean and pure, following
the evangelical word which says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God."(4) What remained was, that the people should be informed of
all this proceeding, that they might see those very men established in the
Church whom they had long seen and mourned as wanderers and scattered.
Their will being known, a great concourse of the brotherhood was assembled.
There was one voice from all, giving thanks to God; all were expressing the
joy of their heart by tears, embracing them as if they had this day been
set free from the penalty of the dungeon. And to quote their very own
words,--"We," they say, "know that  Cornelius is bishop of the most holy
Catholic Church elected by Almighty God, and by Christ our Lord. We confess
our error; we have suffered imposture; we were deceived by captious perfidy
and loquacity. For although we seemed, as it were, to have held a kind of
communion with a man who was a schismatic and a heretic, yet our mind was
always sincere in the Church. For we are not ignorant that there is one
God; that there is one Christ the Lord whom we have confessed, and one Holy
Spirit; and that in the Catholic Church there ought to be one bishop."(5)
Were we not rightly induced by that confession of theirs,(6) to allow that
what they had confessed before the power of the world they might approve
when established in the Church? Wherefore we bade Maximus the presbyter to
take his own place; the rest we received with great approbation of the
people. But we remitted all things to Almighty God, in whose power all
things are reserved.

   3. These things therefore, brother, written to you in the same hour, at
the same moment, we have transmitted; and I have sent away at once
Nicephorus the acolyte, hastening to descend to embarkation, that so, no
delay being made, you might, as if you had been present among that clergy
and in that assembly of people, give thanks to Almighty God and to Christ
our Lord. But we believe--nay, we confide in it for certain-that the others
also who have been ranged in this error will shortly return into the Church
when they see their leaders acting with us. I think. brother, that you
ought to send these letters also to the other churches, that all may know
that the craft and prevarication of this schismatic and heretic are from
day to day being reduced to nothing. Farewell, dearest brother.

EPISTLE XLVI.(1)

CYPRIAN'S ANSWER TO CORNELIUS, CONGRATULATING HIM ON THE RETURN OF THE
CONFESSORS FROM SCHISM.

ARGUMENT.--HE CONGRATULATES HIM ON THE RETURN OF THE CONFESSORS TO THE
CHURCH, AND REMINDS HIM HOW MUCH THAT RETURN BENEFITS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

   1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. I profess that I both
have rendered and do render the greatest thanks without ceasing, dearest
brother, to God the Father Almighty, and to His Christ the Lord and our God
and Saviour, that the Church is thus divinely protected, and its unity and
holiness is not constantly nor altogether corrupted by the obstinacy of
perfidy and heretical wickedness. For we have read your letter, and have
exultingly received the greatest joy from the fulfilment of our common
desire; to wit, that Maximus the presbyter, and Urbanus, the confessors,
with Sidonius and Macarius, have re-entered into the Catholic Church, that
is, that they have laid aside their error, and given up their schismatical,
nay, their heretical madness, and have sought again in the soundness of
faith the home of unity and truth; that whence they had gone forth to
glory, thither they might gloriously return; and that they who had
confessed Christ should not afterwards desert the camp of Christ, and that
they might not tempt the faith of their charity and unity,(2) who had not
been overcome in strength and courage. Behold the safe and unspotted
integrity of their praise; behold the uncorrupted and substantial dignity
of these confessors, that they have departed from the deserters and
fugitives, that they have left the betrayers of the faith, and the
impugners of the Catholic Church. With reason did both the people and the
brotherhood receive them when they returned, as you write, with the
greatest joy; since in the glory of confessors who had maintained their
glory, and returned to unity, there is none who does not reckon himself a
partner and a sharer.

   2. We can estimate the joy of that day(3) from our own feelings. For
if, in this place, the whole number of the brethren rejoiced at your letter
which you sent concerning their confession, and received this tidings of
common rejoicing with the greatest alacrity, what must have been the joy
there when the matter itself, and the general gladness, was carried on
tinder the eyes of all? For since the Lord in His Gospel says that there is
the highest "joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,"(4) how much
greater is the joy in earth, no less than in heaven, over confessors who
return with their glory and with praise to the Church of God, and make a
way of returning for others by the faith and approval of their example? For
this error had led away certain of our brethren, so that they thought they
were following the communion of confessors. When this error was removed,
light was infused into the breasts of all, and the Catholic Church has been
shown to be one, and to be able neither to be cut nor divided. Nor can any
one now be easily deceived by the talkative words of a raging schismatic,
since it has been proved that good and glorious soldiers of Christ could
not long be detained without the Church by the deceitfulness and perfidy of
others. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE XLVII.(5)

CORNELIUS TO CYPRIAN, CONCERNING THE FACTION OF NOVATIAN WITH HIS PARTY.

ARGUMENT.--CORNELIUS GIVES CYPRIAN AN ACCOUNT OF THE FACTION OF
NOVATIAN.(6)

   Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting. That nothing might be
wanting to the future punishment of this wretched man, when cast down by
the powers of God, (on the expulsion by you of Maximus, and Longinus, and
Machaeus;) he has risen again; and, as I intimated in my former letter
which I sent to you by Augendus the confessor, I think that Nicostratus,
and Novatus, and Evaristus, and Primus, and Dionysius, have already come
thither. Therefore let care be taken that it be made known to all our co-
bishops and brethren, that Nicostratus is accused of many crimes, and that
not only has he committed frauds and plunders on his secular patroness,
whose affairs he managed; but, moreover (which is reserved to him for a
perpetual punishment), he has abstracted no small deposits of the Church;
that Evaristus has been the author of a schism; and that Zetus has been
appointed bishop in his room, and his successor to the people over whom he
had previously presided. But he contrived greater and worse things by his
malice and insatiable wickedness than those which he was then always
practising among his own people; so that you may know what kind of leaders
and protectors that schismatic and heretic constantly had joined to his
side. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily fare well.

EPISTLE XLVIII.(1)

CYPRIAN'S ANSWER TO CORNELIUS, CONCERNING THE CRIMES OF NOVATUS.

ARGUMENT.--HE PRAISES CORNELIUS, THAT HE HAD GIVEN HIM TIMELY WARNING,
SEEING THAT THE DAY AFTER THE GUILTY FACTION HAD COME TO HIM HE HAD
RECEIVED CORNELIUS' LETTER. THEN HE DESCRIBES AT LENGTH NOVATUS' CRIMES,
AND THE SCHISM THAT HAD BEFORE BEEN STIRRED UP BY HIM IN AFRICA.

   1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. You have acted, dearest
brother, both with diligence and love, in sending us in haste Nicephorus
the acolyte, who both told us the glorious gladness concerning the return
of the confessors, and most fully instructed us against the new and
mischievous devices of Novatian and Novatus for attacking the Church of
Christ. For whereas on the day before, that mischievous faction of
heretical wickedness had arrived here, itself already lost and ready to
ruin others who should join it, on the day after, Nicephorus arrived with
your letter. From which we both learnt ourselves, and have begun to teach
and to instruct others, that Evaristus from being a bishop has now not
remained even a layman; but, banished from the see and from the people, and
an exile from the Church of Christ, he roves about far and wide through
other provinces, and, himself having made shipwreck of truth and faith, is
preparing for some who are like him, as fearful shipwrecks. Moreover, that
Nicostratus, having lost the diaconate of sacred administrations, because
he had abstracted the Church's money by a sacrilegious fraud, and disowned
the deposits of the widows and orphans, did not wish so much to come into
Africa as to escape thither from the city, from the consciousness of his
rapines and his frightful crimes. And now a deserter and a fugitive from
the Church, as if to have changed the clime were to change the man, he goes
on to boast and announce himself a confessor, although he can no longer
either be or be called a confessor of Christ who has denied Christ's
Church. For when the Apostle Paul says, "For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they two shall
be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and
the Church;"(2)--when, I say, the blessed apostle says this, and with his
sacred voice testifies to the unity of Christ with the Church, cleaving to
one another with indivisible links, how can he be with Christ who is not
with the spouse of Christ, and in His Church?(3) Or how does he assume to
himself the charge of ruling or governing the Church, who has spoiled and
wronged the Church of Christ?

   2. For about Novatus there need have been nothing told by you to us,
since Novatus ought rather to have been shown by us to you, as always
greedy of novelty, raging with the rapacity of an insatiable avarice,
inflated with the arrogance and stupidity of swelling pride; always known
with bad repute to the bishops there; always condemned by the voice of all
the priests as a heretic and a perfidious man; always inquisitive, that he
may betray: he flatters for the purpose of deceiving, never faithful that
he may love; a torch and fire to blow up the flames of sedition; a
whirlwind and tempest to make shipwrecks of  the faith; the foe of quiet,
the adversary of tranquillity, the enemy of peace. Finally, when Novatus
withdrew thence from among you, that is, when the storm and the whirlwind
departed, calm arose there in part, and the glorious and good confessors
who by his instigation had departed from the Church, after he retired from
the city, returned to the Church. This is the same Novatus who first sowed
among us the flames of discord and schism; who separated some of the
brethren here from the bishop; who, in the persecution itself, was to our
people, as it were, another persecution, to overthrow the minds of the
brethren. He it is who, without my leave or knowledge, of his own
factiousness and ambition appointed his attendant Felicissimus a deacon,
and with his own tempest sailing also to Rome to overthrow the Church,
endeavoured to do similar and equal things there, forcibly separating a
part of the people from the clergy, and dividing the concord of the
fraternity that was firmly knit together and mutually loving one another.
Since Rome from her greatness plainly ought to take precedence of Carthage,
he there committed still greater and graver crimes.(4) He who in the one
place had made a deacon contrary to the Church, in the other made a bishop.
Nor let any one be surprised at this in such men. The wicked are always
madly carried away by their own furious passions; and after they have
committed crimes, they are agitated by the very consciousness of a depraved
mind. Neither can those remain in God's Church, who have not maintained its
divine and ecclesiastical discipline, either in the conversation of their
life or the peace of their character. Orphans despoiled by him, widows
defrauded, moneys moreover of the Church withheld, exact from him those
penalties which we behold inflicted in his madness. His father also died of
hunger in the street, and afterwards even in death was not buried by him.
The womb of his wife was smitten by a blow of his heel; and in the
miscarriage that soon followed, the offspring was brought forth, the fruit
of a father's murder. And now does he dare to condemn the hands of those
who sacrifice, when he himself is more guilty in his feet, by which the
son, who was about to be born, was slain?

   3. He long ago feared this consciousness of crime. On account of this
he regarded it as certain that he would not only be turned out of the
presbytery, but restrained from communion; and by the urgency of the
brethren, the day of investigation was coming on, on which his cause was to
be dealt with before us, if the persecution had net prevented. He,
welcoming this, with a sort of desire of escaping and evading condemnation,
committed all these crimes, and wrought all this stir; so that he who was
to be ejected and excluded from the Church, anticipated the judgment of the
priests by a voluntary departure, as if to have anticipated the sentence
were to have escaped the punishment.

   4. But in respect to the other brethren, over whom we grieve that they
were circumvented by him, we labour that they may avoid the mischievous
neighbourhood of the crafty impostor, that they may escape the deadly nets
of his solicitations, that they may once more seek the Church from which he
deserved by divine authority to be expelled. Such indeed, with the Lord's
help, we trust may return by His mercy, for one cannot perish unless it is
plain that he must perish, since the Lord in His Gospel says, "Every
planting which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up."(1)
He alone who has not been planted in the precepts and warnings of God the
Father, can depart from the Church: he alone can forsake the bishops(2) and
abide in his madness with schismatics and heretics. But the mercy of God
the Father, and the indulgence of Christ our Lord, and our own patience,
will unite the rest with us. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily
farewell.

EPISTLE XLIX.(3)

MAXIMUS AND THE OTHER CONFESSORS TO CYPRIAN, ABOUT THEIR RETURN FROM
SCHISM.

ARGUMENT.--THEY INFORM CYPRIAN THAT THEY HAD RETURNED TO THE CHURCH.

   Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, and Macharius, to Cyprian their brother,
greeting. We are certain, dearest brother, that you also rejoice together
with us with equal earnestness, that we having taken advice, and
especially, considering the interests and the peace of the Church, having
passed by all other matters, and reserved them to God's judgment, have made
peace with Cornelius our bishop, as well as with the whole clergy.(4) You
ought most certainly to know from these our letters that this was done with
the joy of the whole Church, and even with the forward affection of the
brethren. We pray, dearest brother, that for many years you may fare well.

EPISTLE L.(5)

FROM CYPRIAN TO THE CONFESSORS, CONGRATULATING THEM ON THEIR RETURN FROM
SCHISM.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN CONGRATULATES THE ROMAN CONFESSORS ON THEIR RETURN INTO
THE CHURCH, AND REPLIES TO THEIR LETTERS.

   1. Cyprian to Maximus the presbyter, also to Urbanus, and Sidonius, and
Maturest, his brethren, greeting. When I read your letters, dearest
brethren, that you wrote to me about your return, and about the peace of
the Church, and the brotherly restoration, I confess that I was as greatly
overjoyed as I had before been overjoyed when I learnt the glory of your
confession, and thankfully received tidings of the heavenly and spiritual
renown of your warfare. For this, moreover, is another confession of your
faith and praise; to confess that the Church is one, and not to become a
sharer in other men's error, or rather wickedness; to seek anew the same
camp whence you went forth, whence with the most vigorous strength you
leapt forth to wage the battle and to subdue the adversary. For the
trophies from the battle-field ought to be brought back thither whence the
arms for the field had been received, lest the Church of Christ should not
retain those same glorious warriors whom Christ had furnished for glory.
Now, however, you have kept in the peace of the Lord the fitting tenor of
your faith and the law of undivided charity and concord, and have given by
your walk an example of love and peace to others; so that the truth of the
Church, and the unity of the Gospel mystery which is held by us, are also
linked together by your consent and bond; and confessors of Christ do not
become the leaders of error, after having stood forth as praiseworthy
originators of virtue and honour.

   2. Let others consider how much they may congratulate you, or how much
each one may glory for himself: I confess that I congratulate you more, and
I more boast of you to others, in respect of this your peaceful return and
charity. For you ought in simplicity to hear what was in my heart. I
grieved vehemently, and I was greatly afflicted, that I could not hold
communion with those whom once I had begun to love. After the schismatical
and heretical error laid hold of you, on your going forth from prison, it
seemed as if your glory had been left in the dungeon. For there the dignity
of your name seemed to have stayed behind when the soldiers of Christ did
not return from the prison to the Church, although they had gone into the
prison with the praise and congratulations of the Church.

   3. For although there seem to be tares in the Church, yet neither our
faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that because we see that
there are tares in the Church we ourselves should withdraw from the Church:
we ought only to labour that we may be wheat, that when the wheat shall
begin to be gathered into the Lord's barns, we may receive fruit for our
labour and work. The apostle in his epistle says, "In a great house there
are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, and
some to honour and some to dishonour."(1) Let us strive, dearest brethren,
and labour as much as we possibly can, that we may be vessels of gold or
silver. But to the Lord alone it is granted to break the vessels of earth,
to whom also is given the rod of iron. The servant cannot be greater than
his lord, nor may any one claim to himself what the Father has given to the
Son alone, so as to think that he can take the fan for winnowing and
purging the threshing-floor, or can separate by human judgment all the
tares from the wheat. That is a proud obstinacy and a sacrilegious
presumption which a depraved madness assumes to itself. And while some are
always assuming to themselves more dominion than meek justice demands, they
perish from the Church; and while they insolently extol themselves, blinded
by their own swelling, they lose the light of truth. For which reason we
also, keeping moderation, and considering the Lord's balances, and thinking
of the love and mercy of God the Father, have long and carefully pondered
with ourselves, and have weighed what was to be done with due moderation.

   4. All which matters you can look into thoroughly, if you will read the
tracts(2) which I have lately read here, and have, for the sake of our
mutual love, transmitted to you also for you to read; wherein there is
neither wanting for the lapsed, censure which may rebuke, nor medicine
which may heal. Moreover, my feeble ability has expressed as well as it
could the unity of the Catholic Church.(3) Which treatise I now more and
more trust will be pleasing to you, since you now read it in such a way as
both to approve and love it; inasmuch as what we have written in words you
fulfil in deeds, when you return to the Church in the unity of charity and
peace. I bid you, dearest brethren, and greatly longed-for, ever heartily
farewell.

EPISTLE LI.(4)

TO ANTONIANUS ABOUT CORNELIUS AND NOVATIAN.

ARGUMENT.--WHEN ANTONIANUS, HAVING RECEIVED LETTERS FROM NOVATIAN, HAD
BEGUN TO BE DISPOSED IN HIS MIND TOWARDS HIS PARTY, CYPRIAN CONFIRMS HIM IN
HIS FORMER OPINION, NAMELY, THAT OF CONTINUING TO HOLD COMMUNION WITH HIS
BISHOP AND SO WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. HE EXCUSES HIMSELF FOR HIS OWN
CHANGE OF OPINION IN RESPECT OF THE LAPSED, AND AT THE END HE EXPLAINS
WHEREIN CONSISTS THE NOVATIAN HERESY.(5)

   1. Cyprian to Antonianus his brother, greeting. I received your first
letters, dearest brother, firmly maintaining the concord of the priestly
college, and adhering to the Catholic Church, in which you intimated that
you did not hold communion with Novatian, but followed my advice, and held
one common agreement with Cornelius our co-bishop.(6) You wrote, moreover,
for me to transmit a copy of those same letters to Cornelius our colleague,
so that he might lay aside all anxiety, and know at once that you held
communion with him, that is, with the Catholic Church.(7)

   2. But subsequently there arrived other letters of yours sent by
Quintus our co-presbyter, in which I observed that your mind, influenced by
I the letters of Novatian, had begun to waver. For although previously you
had settled your opinion and consent firmly, you desired in these letters
that I should write to you once more what heresy Novatian had introduced,
or on what grounds Cornelius holds communion with Trophimus and the
sacrificers. In which matters, indeed, if you are anxiously careful, from
solicitude for the faith, and are diligently seeking out the truth of a
doubtful matter, the hesitating anxiety of a mind undecided in the fear of
God, is not to be blamed.

   3. Yet, as I see that after the first opinion expressed in your letter,
you have been disturbed subsequently by letters of Novatian, I assert this
first of all, dearest brother, that grave men, and men who are once
established upon the strong rock with solid firmness, are not moved, I say
not with a light air, but even with a wind or a tempest, lest their mind,
changeable and uncertain, be frequently agitated hither and thither by
various opinions, as by gusts of wind rushing on them, and so be turned
from its purpose with some reproach of levity. That the letters of Novatian
may not do this with you, nor with any one, I will set before you, as you
have desired, my brother, an account of the matter in few words. And first
of all indeed, as you also seem troubled about what I too have done, I must
clear my own person and cause in your eyes, lest any should think that I
have lightly withdrawn from my purpose, and while at first and at the
commencement I maintained evangelical vigour, yet subsequently I seem to
have turned my mind from discipline and from its former severity of
judgment, so as to think that those who have stained their conscience with
certificates, or have  offered abominable sacrifices, are to have peace
made easy to them. Both of which things have been done by me, not without
long-balanced and pondered reasons.

   4. For when the battle was still going on, and the struggle of a
glorious contest was raging in the persecution, the courage of the soldiers
had to be excited with every exhortation, and with full urgency, and
especially the minds of the lapsed had to be roused with the trumpet call,
as it were, of my voice, that they might pursue the way of repentance, not
only with prayers and lamentations; but, since an opportunity was given of
repeating the struggle and of regaining salvation, that they might be
reproved by my voice, and stimulated rather to the ardour of confession and
the glory of martyrdom. Finally, when the presbyters and deacons had
written to me about some persons, that they were without moderation and
were eagerly pressing forward to receive communion; replying to them in my
letter which is still in existence,(1) then I added also this: "If these
are so excessively eager, they have what they require in their own power,
the time itself providing for them more than they ask: the battle is still
being carried on, and the struggle is daily celebrated: if they truly and
substantially repent of what they have done, and the ardour of their faith
prevails, he who cannot be delayed may be crowned." But I put off deciding
what was to be arranged about the case of the lapsed, so that when quiet
and tranquillity should be granted, and the divine indulgence should allow
the bishops to assemble into one place, then the advice gathered from the
comparison of all opinions being communicated and weighed, we might
determine what was necessary to be done. But if any one, before our
council,(2) and before the opinion decided upon by the advice of all,
should rashly wish to communicate with the lapsed, he himself should be
withheld from communion.

   5. And this also I wrote very fully to Rome, to the clergy who were
then still acting without a bishop, and to the confessors, Maximus the
presbyter, and the rest who were then shut up in prison, but are now in the
Church, joined with Cornelius. You may know that I wrote this from their
reply, for in their letter they wrote thus: "However, what you have
yourself also declared in so important a matter is satisfactory to us, that
the peace of the Church must first be maintained; then, that an assembly
for counsel being gathered together, with bishop, presbyters, deacons, and
confessors, as well as with the laity who stand fast, we should deal with
the case of the lapsed."(3) It was added also--Novatian then writing, and
reciting with his own voice what he had written, and the presbyter Moyses,
then still a confessor, but now a martyr, subscribing--that peace ought to
be granted to the lapsed who were sick and at the point of departure. Which
letter was sent throughout the whole world, and was brought to the
knowledge of all the churches and all the brethren.(4)

   6. According, however, to what had been before decided, when the
persecution was quieted, and opportunity of meeting was afforded; a large
number of bishops, whom their faith and the divine protection had preserved
in soundness and safety, we met together; and the divine Scriptures being
brought forward s on both sides, we balanced the decision with wholesome
moderation, so that neither should hope of communion and peace be wholly
denied to the lapsed, lest they should fail still more through desperation.
and, because the Church was closed to them, should, like the world, live as
heathens; nor yet, on the other hand, should the censure of the Gospel be
relaxed, so that they might rashly rush to communion, but that repentance
should be long protracted, and the paternal clemency be sorrowfully
besought, and the cases, and the wishes, and the necessities of individuals
be examined into, according to what is contained in a little book, which I
trust has come to you, in which the several heads of our decisions are
collected. And lest perchance the number of bishops in Africa should seem
unsatisfactory, we also wrote to Rome, to Cornelius our colleague,
concerning this thing, who himself also holding a council with very many
bishops, concurred in the same opinion as we had held, with equal gravity
and wholesome moderation.(1)

   7. Concerning which it has now become necessary to write to you, that
you may know that I have done nothing lightly, but, according to what I had
before comprised in my letters, had put off everything to the common
determination of our council, and indeed communicated with no one of the
lapsed as yet, so long as there still was an opening by which the lapsed
might receive not only pardon, but also a crown. Yet afterwards, as the
agreement of our college, and the advantage of gathering the fraternity
together and of healing their wound required, I submitted to the necessity
of the times, and thought that the safety of the many must be provided for;
and I do not now recede from these things which have once been determined
in our council by common agreement, although many things are ventilated by
the voices of many, and lies against God's priests uttered from the devil's
mouth, and tossed about everywhere, to the rupture of the concord of
Catholic unity. But it behoves you, as a good brother and a fellow-priest
like-minded, not easily to receive what malignants and apostates may say,
but carefully to weigh what your colleagues, modest and grave men, may do,
from an investigation of our life and teaching.

   8. I come now, dearest brother, to the character of Cornelius our
colleague, that with us you may more justly know Cornelius, not from the
lies of malignants and detractors, but from the judgment of the Lord God,
who made him a bishop, and from the testimony of his fellow-bishops, the
whole number of whom has agreed with an absolute unanimity throughout the
whole world. For,--a thing which with laudable announcement commends our
dearest Cornelius to God and Christ, and to His Church, and also to all his
fellow-priests,--he was not one who on a sudden attained to the episcopate;
but, promoted through all the ecclesiastical offices, and having often
deserved well of the Lord in divine administrations, he ascended by all the
grades of religious service to the lofty summit of the Priesthood. Then,
moreover, he did not either ask for the episcopate itself, nor did he wish
it; nor, as others do when the swelling of their l arrogance and pride
inflates them, did he seize  upon it;(2) but quiet otherwise, and meek and
such as those are accustomed to be who are chosen of God to this office,
having regard to the modesty of his virgin continency, and the humility of
his inborn and guarded veneration, he did not, as some do, use force to be
made a bishop, but he himself suffered compulsion, so as to be forced to
receive the episcopal office. And he was made bishop by very many of our
colleagues who were then present in the city of Rome, who sent to us
letters concerning his ordination, honourable and laudatory, and remarkable
for their testimony in announcement of him. Moreover, Cornelius was made
bishop by the judgment of God and of His Christ, by the testimony of almost
all the clergy, by the suffrage of the people who were then present, and by
the assembly of ancient priests and good men, when no one had been made so
before him, when the place of Fabian, that is, when the place of Peter(3)
and the degree of the sacerdotal throne was vacant; which being occupied by
the will of God, and established by the consent of all of us, whosoever now
wishes to become a bishop, must needs be made from without; and he cannot
have the ordination of the Church who does not hold the unity of the
Church. Whoever he may be, although greatly boasting about himself, and
claiming very much for himself, he is profane, he is an alien, he is
without. And as after the first there cannot be a second, whosoever is made
after one who ought to be alone, is not second to him, but is in fact none
at all.

   9. Then afterwards, when he had undertaken the episcopate, not obtained
by solicitation nor by extortion, but by the will of God who makes priests;
what a virtue there was in the very undertaking of his episcopate, what
strength of mind, what firmness of faith,--a thing that  we ought with
simple heart both thoroughly to look into and to praise,--that he
intrepidly sate at Rome in the sacerdotal chair at that time when a tyrant,
odious to God's priests, was threatening things that can, and cannot be
spoken, inasmuch as he would much more patiently and tolerantly hear that a
rival prince was raised up against himself than that a priest of God was
established at Rome. Is not this man, dearest brother, to be commended with
the highest testimony of virtue and faith? Is not he to be esteemed among
the glorious confessors and martyrs, who for so long a time sate awaiting
the manglers of his body and the avengers of a ferocious tyrant, who, when
Cornelius resisted their deadly edicts, and trampled on their threats and
sufferings and tortures by the vigour of his faith, would either rush upon
him with the sword, or crucify him, or scorch him with fire, or rend his
bowels and his limbs with some unheard-of kind of punishment? Even though
the majesty and goodness of the protecting Lord guarded, when made, the
priest whom He willed to be made; yet Cornelius, in what pertains to his
devotion and fear, suffered(3) whatever he could suffer, and conquered the
tyrant first of all by his priestly office, who was afterwards conquered in
arms and in war.

   10. But in respect to certain discreditable and malignant things that
are bandied about concerning him, I would not have you wonder when you know
that this is always the work of the devil, to wound God's servants with
lies, and to defame a glorious name by false opinions, so that they who are
bright in the light of their own conscience may be tarnished by the reports
of others Moreover, you are to know that our colleagues have investigated,
and have certainly discovered that he has been blemished with no stain of a
certificate, as some intimate; neither has he mingled in sacrilegious
communion with the bishops who have sacrificed, but has merely associated
with us those whose cause had been heard, and whose innocence was approved.

   11. For with respect to Trophimus also, of whom you wished tidings to
be written to you, the case is not as the report and the falsehood of
malignant people had conveyed it to you. For, as our predecessors often
did, our dearest brother, in bringing together the brethren, yielded to
necessity; and since a very large part of the people had withdrawn with
Trophimus, now when Trophimus returned to the Church, and atoned for, and
with the penitence of prayer confessed, his former error, and with perfect
humility and satisfaction recalled the brotherhood whom he had lately taken
away, his prayers were heard; and not only Trophimus, but a very great
number of brethren who had been with Trophimus, were admitted into the
Church of the Lord, who would not all have returned to the Church unless
they had come in Trophimus' company. Therefore the matter being considered
there with several colleagues,' Trophimus was received, for whom the return
of the brethren and salvation restored to many made atonement. Yet
Trophimus was admitted in such a manner as only to communicate as a layman,
not, according to the information given to you by the letters of the
malignants, in such a way as to assume the place of a priest.

   12. But, moreover, in respect of what has been told you, that Cornelius
communicates everywhere with those who have sacrificed, this intelligence
has also arisen from the false reports of the apostates. For neither can
they praise us who depart from us, nor ought we to expect to please them,
who, while they displease us, and revolt against the Church, violently
persist in soliciting brethren away from the Church. Wherefore, dearest
brethren, do not with facility either hear or believe whatever is currently
rumoured against Cornelius and about me.

   13. For if any are seized with sicknesses, help is given to them in
danger, as it has been decided. Yet after they have been assisted, and
peace has been granted to them in their danger, they cannot be suffocated
by us, or destroyed,(2) or by our force or hands urged on to the result of
death; as if, because peace is granted to the dying, it were necessary that
those who have received peace should die; although the token of divine love
and paternal lenity appears more in this way, that they, who in peace given
to them receive the pledge of life, are moreover here bound to life by the
peace they have received. And therefore, if with peace received, a reprieve
is given by God, no one ought to complain of the priests for this, when
once it has been decided that brethren are to be aided in peril. Neither
must you think, dearest brother, as some do, that those who receive
certificates are to be put on a par with those who have sacrificed; since
even among those who have sacrificed, the condition and the case are
frequently different. For we must not place on a level one who has at once
leapt forward with good-will to the abominable sacrifice, and one who,
after long struggle and resistance, has reached that fatal result under
compulsion; one who has betrayed both himself and all his connections, and
one who, himself approaching the trial in behalf of all, has protected his
wife and his children, and his whole family, by himself undergoing the
danger; one who has compelled his inmates or friends to the crime, and one
who has spared inmates and servants, and has even. received many brethren
who were departing to banishment and flight, into his house and
hospitality; showing and offering to the Lord many souls living and safe to
entreat for a single wounded one.

   14. Since, then, there is much difference(3) between those who have
sacrificed, what a want of mercy it is, and how bitter is the hardship, to
associate those who have received certificates, with those who have
sacrificed, when he by whom the certificate has been received may say, "I
had previously read, and had been made aware by the discourse of the
bishop,(4) that we must not sacrifice to idols, that the servant of God
ought not to worship images; and therefore, in order that I might not do
this which was net lawful, when the opportunity of receiving a certificate
was offered, which itself also I should not have received, unless the
opportunity had been put before me, I either went or charged some other
person going to the magistrate, to say that I am a Christian, that I am not
allowed to sacrifice, that I cannot come to the devil's altars, and that I
pay a price for this purpose, that I may not do what is not lawful for me
to do." Now, however, even he who is stained with having received a
certificate,--after he has learnt from our admonitions that he ought not
even to have done this, and that although his hand is pure, and no contact
of deadly food has polluted his lips, yet his conscience is nevertheless
polluted, weeps when he hears us, and laments, and is now admonished of the
thing wherein he has sinned, and having been deceived, not so much by guilt
as by error, bears witness that for another time he is instructed and
prepared.

   15. If we reject the repentance of those who have some confidence in a
conscience that may be tolerated; at once with their wife, with their
children, whom they had kept safe, they are hurried by the devil's
invitation into heresy or schism; and it will be attributed to us in the
day of judgment, that we have not cared for the wounded sheep,(1) and that
on account of a single wounded one we have lost many sound ones. And
whereas the Lord left the ninety and nine that were whole, and sought after
the one wandering and weary, and Himself carried it, when found, upon His
shoulders, we not only do not seek the lapsed, but even drive them away
when they come to us; and while false prophets are not ceasing to lay waste
and tear Christ's flock, we give an opportunity to dogs and wolves, so that
those whom a hateful persecution has not destroyed, we ruin by our hardness
and inhumanity. And what will become, dearest brother, of what the apostle
says: "I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the
profit of many, that they may be saved. Be ye followers of me, as I also am
of Christ."(2) And again: "To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain
the weak."(3) And again: "Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer
with it; or one member rejoice, all the members rejoice with it."(4)

   16. The principle of the philosophers and stoics is different, dearest
brother, who say that all sins are equal, and that a grave man ought not
easily to be moved. But there is a wide difference between Christians and
philosophers. And when the apostle says, "Beware, lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit,"(5) we are to avoid those things which
do not come from God's clemency, but are begotten of the presumption of a
too rigid philosophy. Concerning Moses, moreover, we find it said in the
Scriptures, "Now the man Moses was very meek;"(6) and the Lord in His
Gospel says, "Be ye merciful, as your Father also had mercy upon you;"(7)
and again, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are
sick."(8) What medical skill can he exercise who says, "I cure the sound
only, who have no need of a physician?" We ought to give our assistance,
our healing art, to those who are wounded; neither let us think them dead,
but rather let us regard them as lying half alive, whom we see to have been
wounded in the fatal persecution, and who, if they had been altogether
dead, would never from the same men become afterwards both confessors and
martyrs.(9)

   17. But since in them there is that, which, by subsequent repentance,
may be strengthened into faith; and by repentance strength is armed to
virtue, which could not be armed if one should fall away through despair;
if, hardly and cruelly separated from the Church, he should turn himself to
Gentile ways and to worldly works, or, if rejected by the Church, he should
pass over to heretics and schismatics; where, although he should afterwards
be put to death on account of the name, still, being placed outside the
Church, and divided from unity and from charity, he could not in his death
be crowned. And therefore it was decided, dearest brother, the case of each
individual having been examined into, that the receivers of certificates
should in the meantime be admitted, that those who had sacrificed should be
assisted at death, because there is no confession in the place of the
departed,(10) nor can any one be constrained by us to repentance, if the
fruit of repentance be taken away. If the battle should come first,
strengthened by us, he will be found ready armed for the battle; but if
sickness should press hard upon him before the battle, he departs with the
consolation of peace and communion.

   18. Moreover, we do not prejudge when the Lord is to be the judge; save
that if He shall find the repentance of the sinners full and sound, He will
then ratify what shall have been here determined by us. If, however, any
one should delude us with the pretence of repentance, God, who is not
mocked, and who looks into man's heart, will judge of those things which we
have imperfectly looked into, and the Lord will amend the sentence of His
servants; while yet, dearest brother, we ought to remember that it is
written, "A brother that helpeth a brother shall be exalted;"(11) and that
the apostle also has said, "Let all of you severally have regard to
yourselves, lest ye also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so
fulfil the law of Christ;"(1) also that, rebuking the haughty, and breaking
down their arrogance, he says in his epistle, "Let him that thinketh he
standeth, take heed lest he fall;"(2) and in another place he says, "Who
art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth
or falleth; yea, he shall stand, for God is able to make him stand."(3)
John also proves that Jesus Christ the Lord is our Advocate and Intercessor
for our sins, saying, "My little children, these things write I unto you,
that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the Supporter: and He is the propitiation for our sins."(4)
And Paul also, the apostle, in his epistle, has written, "If, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more, being now justified by His
blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."(5)

   19. Considering His love and mercy, we ought not to be so bitter, nor
cruel, nor inhuman in cherishing the brethren, but to mourn with those that
mourn, and to weep with them that weep, and to raise them up as much as we
can by the help and comfort of our love; neither being too ungentle and
pertinacious in repelling their repentance; nor, again, being too lax and
easy in rashly yielding communion. Lo! a wounded brother lies stricken by
the enemy in the field of battle. There the devil is striving to slay him
whom he has wounded; here Christ is exhorting that he whom He has redeemed
may not wholly perish. Whether of the two do we assist? On whose side do we
stand? Whether do we favour the devil, that he may destroy, and pass by our
prostrate lifeless brother, as in the Gospel did the priest and Levite; or
rather, as priests of God and Christ, do we imitate what Christ both taught
and did, and snatch the wounded man from the jaws of the enemy, that we may
preserve him cured for God the judge?(6)

   20. And do not think, dearest brother, that either the courage of the
brethren will be lessened, or that martyrdoms will fail for this cause,
that repentance is relaxed to the lapsed, and that the hope of peace is
offered to the penitent. The strength of the truly believing remains
unshaken; and with those who fear and love God with their whole heart,
their integrity continues steady and strong. For to adulterers even a time
of repentance is granted by us, and peace is given. Yet virginity is not
therefore deficient in the Church, nor does the glorious design of
continence languish through the sins of others. The Church, crowned with so
many virgins, flourishes; and chastity and modesty preserve the tenor of
their glory. Nor is the vigour of continence broken down because repentance
and pardon are facilitated to the adulterer. It is one thing to stand for
pardon, another thing to attain to glory: it is one thing, when cast into
prison, not to go out thence until one has paid the uttermost farthing;
another thing at once to receive the wages of faith and courage. It is one
thing, tortured by long suffering for sins, to be cleansed and long purged
by fire;(7) another to have purged all sins by suffering. It is one thing,
in fine, to be in suspense till the sentence of God at the day of judgment;
another to be at once crowned by the Lord.

   21. And, indeed, among our predecessors, some of the bishops here in
our province thought that peace was not to be granted to adulterers, and
wholly closed the gate of repentance against adultery. Still they did not
withdraw from the assembly of their co-bishops, nor break the unity of the
Catholic Church(8) by the persistency of their severity or censure; so
that, because by some peace was granted to adulterers, he who did not grant
it should be separated from the Church.  While the bond of concord remains,
and the undivided sacrament of the Catholic Church endures, every bishop
disposes and directs his own acts, and will have to give an account of his
purposes to the Lord.(9)

   22. But I wonder that some are so obstinate as to think that repentance
is not to be granted to the lapsed, or to suppose that pardon is to be
denied to the penitent, when it is written, "Remember whence thou art
fallen, and repent, and do the first works,"(10) which certainly is said to
him who evidently has fallen, and whom the Lord exhorts to rise up again by
his works, because it is written, "Alms do deliver from death,"(11) and
not, assuredly, from that death which once the blood of Christ
extinguished, and from which the saving grace of baptism and of our
Redeemer has delivered us, but from that which subsequently creeps in
through sins. Moreover, in another place time is granted for repentance;
and the Lord threatens him that does not repent: "I have," saith He, "many
things against thee, because thou sufferest thy wife Jezebel, which calleth
herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit
fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols; and I gave her a space
to repent, and she will not repent of her fornication. Behold, I will cast
her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great
tribulation, except they repent of their deeds;"(1) whom certainly the Lord
would not exhort to repentance, if it were not that He promises mercy to
them that repent. And in the Gospel He says, "I say unto you, that likewise
joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over
ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance."(2) For since it is
written, "God did not make death, neither hath He pleasure in the
destruction of the living,"(3) assuredly He who wills that none should
perish, desires that sinners should repent, and by repentance should return
again to life. Thus also He cries by Joel the prophet, and says, "And now,
thus saith the Lord your God, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and
with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and
not your garments, and return unto the Lord your God; for He is gracious
and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of
the evil appointed."(4) In the Psalms, also, we read as well the rebuke as
the clemency of God, threatening at the same time as He spares, punishing
that He may correct; and when He has corrected, preserving. "I will visit,"
He says, "their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with
stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from
them."(5)

   23. The Lord also in His Gospel, setting forth the love of God the
Father, says, "What man is there of you, whom, if his son ask bread, will
he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much
l more shall your heavenly Father give good things  to them that ask
Him?''(6) The Lord is here comparing the father after the flesh, and the
eternal and liberal love of God the Father. But if that evil father upon
earth, deeply offended by a sinful and evil son, yet if he should see the
same son afterwards reformed, and, the sins of his former life being put
away, restored to sobriety and morality and to the discipline of innocence
by the sorrow of his repentance, both rejoices and gives thanks, and with
the eagerness of a father's exultation, embraces the restored one, whom
before he had cast out; how much more does that one and true Father, good,
merciful, and loving--yea, Himself Goodness and Mercy and Love--rejoice in
the repentance of His own sons! nor threatens punishment to those who are
now repenting, or mourning and lamenting, but rather promises pardon and
clemency. Whence the Lord in the Gospel calls those that mourn, blessed;
because he who mourns calls forth mercy.(7) He who is stubborn and haughty
heaps up wrath against himself, and the punishment of the coming judgment.
And therefore, dearest brother, we have decided that those who do not
repent, nor give evidence of sorrow for their sins with their whole heart,
and with manifest profession of their lamentation, are to be absolutely
restrained from the hope of communion and peace if they begin to beg for
them in the midst of sickness and peril; because it is not repentance for
sin, but the warning of urgent death, that drives them to ask; and he is
not worthy to receive consolation in death who has not reflected that he
was about to die.

   24. In reference, however, to the character of Novatian, dearest
brother, of whom you desired that intelligence should be written you what
heresy he had introduced; know that, in the first place, we ought not even
to be inquisitive as to what he teaches, so long as he teaches out of the
pale of unity. Whoever he may be, and whatever he may be, he who is not in
the Church of Christ is not a Christian. Although he may boast himself, and
announce his philosophy or eloquence with lofty words, yet he who has not
maintained brotherly love or ecclesiastical unity has lost even what he
previously had been. Unless he seems to you to be a bishop, who--when a
bishop has been made in the Church by sixteen(8) co-bishops--strives by
bribery to be made an adulterous and extraneous bishop by the hands of
deserters; and although there is one Church, divided by Christ throughout
the whole world into many members, and also one episcopate diffused through
a harmonious multitude of many bishops;(9) in spite of God's tradition, in
spite of the combined and everywhere compacted unity of the Catholic
Church, is endeavouring to make a human church, and is sending his new
apostles through very many cities, that he may establish some new
foundations of his own appointment. And although there have already been
ordained in each city, and through all the provinces, bishops old in years,
sound in faith, proved in trial, proscribed in persecution, (this one)
dares to create over these other and false bishops: as if he could either
wander over the whole world with the persistence of his new endeavour, or
break asunder the structure of the ecclesiastical body, by the propagation
of his own discord, not knowing that schismatics are always fervid at the
beginning, but that they cannot increase nor add to what they have
unlawfully begun, but that they immediately fail together with their evil
emulation. But he could not hold the episcopate, even if he had before been
made bishop, since he has cut himself off from the body of his fellow-
bishops, and from the unity of the Church; since the apostle admonishes
that we should mutually sustain one another, and not withdraw from the
unity which God has appointed, and says, "Bearing with one another in love,
endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."(1) He
then who neither maintains the unity of the Spirit nor the bond of peace,
and separates himself from the band of the Church, and from the assembly of
priests, can neither have the power nor the honour of a bishop, since he
has refused to maintain either the unity or the peace of the episcopate.(2)

   25. Then, moreover, what a swelling of arrogance it is, what oblivion
of humility and gentleness, what a boasting of his own arrogance, that any
one should either dare, or think that he is able, to do what the Lord did
not even grant to the apostles; that he should think that he can discern
the tares from the wheat, or, as if it were granted to him to bear the fan
and to purge the threshing-floor, should endeavour to separate the chaff
from the wheat; and since the apostle says, "But in a great house there are
not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth,"(3)
should think to choose the vessels of gold and of silver, to despise, to
cast away, and to condemn the vessels of wood and of clay; while the
vessels of wood are not burnt up except in the day of the Lord by the flame
of the divine burning, and the vessels of clay are only broken by Him to
whom is given the rod of iron.

   26. Or if he appoints himself a searcher and judge of the heart and
reins, let him in all cases judge equally. And as he knows that it is
written, "Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing
happen unto thee,"(4) let him separate the fraudulent and adulterers from
his side and from his company, since the case of an adulterer is by far
both graver and worse than that of one who has taken a certificate, because
the latter has sinned by necessity, the former by free will: the latter,
thinking that it is sufficient for him that he has not sacrificed, has been
deceived by an error; the former, a violator of the matrimonial tie of
another, or entering a brothel, into the sink and filthy gulf of the common
people, has befouled by detestable impurity a sanctified body and God's
temple, as says the apostle: "Every sin that a man doeth is without the
body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body."(5)
And yet to these persons themselves repentance is granted, and the hope of
lamenting and atoning is left, according to the saying of the same apostle:
"I fear lest, when I come to you, I shall bewail many of those who have
sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness, and fornication,
and lasciviousness which they have committed."(6)

   27. Neither let the new heretics flatter themselves in this, that they
say that they do not communicate with idolaters; although among them there
are both adulterers and fraudulent persons, who are held guilty of the
crime of idolatry, according to the saying of the apostle: "For know this
with understanding, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous
man, whose guilt is that of idolatry, hath any inheritance in the kingdom
of Christ and of God."(7) And again: "Mortify therefore your members which
are upon the earth; putting off fornication, uncleanness, and evil
concupiscence, and covetousness, which are the service of idols: for which
things' sake cometh the wrath of God."(8) For as our bodies are members of
Christ, and we are each a temple of God, whosoever violates the temple of
God by adultery, violates God; and he who, in committing sins, does the
will of the devil, serves demons and idols. For evil deeds do not come from
the Holy Spirit, but from the prompting of the adversary, and lusts born of
the unclean spirit constrain men to act against God and to obey the devil.
Thus it happens that if they say that one is polluted by another's sin, and
if they con tend, by their own asseveration, that the idolatry of the
delinquent passes over to one who is not guilty according to their own
word; they cannot be excused from the crime of idolatry, since from the
apostolic proof it is evident that the adulterers and defrauders with whom
they communicate are idolaters. But with us, according to our faith and the
given rule of divine preaching, agrees the principle of truth, that every
one is himself held fast in his own sin; nor can one become guilty for
another, since the Lord forewarns us, saying, "The righteousness of the
righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon
him."(9) And again: "The fathers shall not die for the children, and the
children shall not die for the fathers. Every one shall die in his own
sin."(10) Reading and observing this, we certainly think that no one is to
be restrained from the fruit of satisfaction, and the hope of peace, since
we know, according to the faith of the divine Scriptures, God Himself being
their author, and exhorting in them, both that sinners are brought back to
repentance, and that pardon and mercy are not denied to penitents.(1)

   28. And oh, mockery of a deceived fraternity! Oh, vain deception of
miserable and senseless mourners! Oh, ineffectual and profitless tradition
of heretical institution! to exhort to the repentance of atonement, and to
take away the healing from the atonement; to say to our brethren, "Mourn
and shed tears, and groan day and night, and labour largely and frequently
for the washing away and cleansing of your sin; but, after all these
things, you shall die without the pale of the Church. Whatsoever things are
necessary to peace, you shall do, but none of that peace which you seek
shall you receive!" Who would not perish at once? Who would not fall away,
from very desperation? Who would not turn away his mind from all design of
lamentation? Do you think that the husbandman could labour if you should
say, "Till the field with all the skill of husbandry, diligently persevere
in its cultivation; but you shall reap no harvest, you shall press no
vintage, you shall receive no fruits of your olive-yard, you shall gather
no apples from the trees;" or if, urging upon any one the possession and
use of ships, you were to say, "Purchase, my brother, material from
excellent woods; inweave your keel with the strongest and chosen oak;
labour on the rudder, the ropes, the sails, that the ship may be
constructed and fitted; but when you have done this, you shall never behold
the result from its doings and its voyages?"

   29. This is to shut up and to cut off the way of grief and of
repentance; so that while in all Scripture the Lord God sooths those who
return to Him and repent, repentance itself is taken away by our hardness
and cruelty, which intercepts the fruits of repentance. But if we find that
none ought to be restrained from repenting, and that peace may be granted
by His priests to those who entreat and beseech the Lord's mercy, inasmuch
as He is merciful and loving, the groaning of those who mourn is to be
admitted, and the fruit of repentance is not to be denied to those who
grieve. And because in the place of the departed there is no confession,
neither can confession be made there,(2) they who have repented from their
whole heart, and have asked for it, ought to be received within the Church,
and to be kept in it for the Lord, who will of a surety judge, when He
comes to His Church, those whom He shall find within it. But apostates and
deserters, or adversaries and enemies, and those who lay waste the Church
of Christ, cannot, even if outside the Church they have been slain for His
name, according to the apostle, be admitted to the peace of the Church,
since they have neither kept the unity of the spirit nor of the Church.

   30. These few things for the present, out of many, dearest brother, I
have run over as briefly as I could, that I might thereby both satisfy your
desire, and might link you more and more closely to the society of our
college and body.(3) But if there should arise to you an opportunity and
power of coming to us, we shall be able to confer more fully together, and
to consider more fruitfully and more at large the things which make for a
salutary agreement. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE LII.(4)

TO FORTUNATUS AND HIS OTHER COLLEAGUES, CONCERNING THOSE WHO HAD BEEN
OVERCOME BY TORTUES.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN BEING CONSULTED BY HIS COLLEAGUES, WHETHER CERTAIN
LAPSED PERSONS WHO HAD BEEN OVERPOWERED BY TORTURE SHOULD BE ADMITTED TO
COMMUNION, REPLIES, THAT INASMUCH AS THEY HAD ALREADY REPENTED FOR THE
SPACE OF THREE YEARS, HE THOUGHT THEY SHOULD BE RECEIVED; BUT AS AFTER THE
FESTIVAL OF EASTER THERE WOULD BE A COUNCIL OF BISHOPS WITH HIM, HE WOULD
THEN CONSIDER THE MATTER WITH THEM.

   1. Cyprian to Fortunatus, Ahymnus, Optatus, Privatianus, Donatulus, and
Felix, his brethren, greeting, You have written to me, dearest brethren,
that when you were in the city of Capsa for the purpose of ordaining a
bishop, Superius, our brother and colleague brought before you, that Ninus,
Clementianus, and Florus, our brethren, who had been previously laid hold
of in the persecution, and confessing the name of the Lord, had overcome
the violence of the magistracy, and the attack of a raging populace,
afterwards, when they were tortured before the proconsul with severe
sufferings, were vanquished by the acuteness of the torments, and fell,
through their lengthened agonies, from the degree of glory to which in the
full virtue of faith they were tending, and after this grave lapse,
incurred not willingly but of necessity, had not yet ceased their
repentance for the space of three years: of whom you thought it right to
consult whether it was well to receive them now to communion.

   2. And indeed, in respect of my own opinion, I think that the Lord's
mercy will not be wanting to those who are known to have stood in the ranks
of battle, to have confessed the name,(1) to have overcome the violence of
the magistrates and the rush of the raging populace with the persistency of
unshaken faith, to have suffered imprisonment, to have long resisted,
amidst the threats of the proconsul and the warring of the surrounding
people, torments that wrenched and tore them with protracted repetition; so
that in the last moment to have been vanquished by the infirmity of the
flesh, may be extenuated by the plea of preceding deserts. And it may be
sufficient for such to have lost their glory, but that we ought not,
moreover, to close the place of pardon to them, and deprive them of their
Father's love and of our communion; to whom we think it may be sufficient
for entreating the mercy of the Lord, that for three years continually and
sorrowfully, as you write, they have lamented with excessive penitential
mourning. Assuredly I do not think that peace is incautiously and over-
hastily granted to those, who by the bravery of their warfare, have not, we
see, been previously wanting to the battle; and who, if the struggle should
come on anew, might be able to regain their glory. For when it was decided
in the council that penitents in peril of sickness should be assisted, and
have peace granted to them, surely those ought to precede in receiving
peace whom we see not to have fallen by weakness of mind, but who, having
engaged in the conflict, and being wounded, have not been able to sustain
the crown of their confession through weakness of the flesh; especially
since, in their desire to die, they were not permitted to be slain, but the
tortures wrenched their wearied frames long enough, not to conquer their
faith, which is unconquerable, but to exhaust the flesh, which is weak.

   3. Since, however, you have written for me to give full consideration
to this matter with many of my colleagues; and so great a subject claims
greater and more careful counsel from the conference of many; and as now
almost all, during the first celebrations of Easter, are dwelling at home
with their brethren: when they shall have completed the solenmity to be
celebrated among their own people, and have begun to come to me, I will
consider it more at large with each one, so that a decided opinion, weighed
in the council of many priests, on the subject on which you have consulted
me, may be established among us, and may be written to you. I bid you,
dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell.(2)

EPISTLE LIII.(3)

TO CORNELIUS, CONCERNING GRANTING PEACE TO THE LAPSED.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN ANNOUNCES THIS DECREE OF THE BISHOPS IN THE NAME OF THE
WHOLE SYNOD TO FATHER CORNELIUS; AND THEREFORE THIS LETTER IS NOT SO MUCH
THE LETTER OF CYPRIAN HIMSELF, AS THAT OF THE ENTIRE AFRICAN SYNOD.(4)

   Cyprian, Liberalis, Caldonius, Nicomedes, Caecilius, Junius, Marrutius,
Felix, Successus, Faustinus, Fortunatus, Victor, Saturninus, another
Saturninus, Rogatianus, Tertullus, Lucianus, Eutyches, Amplus, Sattius,
Secundinus, another Saturninus, Aurelius, Priscus, Herculanus, Victoricus,
Quintus, Honoratus, Montanus, Hortensianus, Verianus, Iambus, Donatus,
Pompeius, Polycarpus, Demetrius, another Donatus, Privatianus, another
Fortunatus, Rogatus and Monulus, to Cornelius their brother,(5)
greeting.(6)

   1. We had indeed decided some time ago, dearest brother, having
mutually taken counsel one with another, that they who, in the fierceness
of persecution, had been overthrown by the adversary, and had lapsed, and
had polluted themselves with unlawful sacrifices, should undergo a long and
full repentance; and if the risk of sickness should be urgent, should
receive peace on the very point of death. For it was not right, neither did
the love of the Father nor divine mercy allow, that the Church should be
closed to those that knock, or the help of the hope of salvation be denied
to those who mourn and entreat, so that when they pass from this world,
they should be dismissed to their Lord without communion and peace; since
He Himself who gave the law, that things which were bound on earth should
also be bound in heaven, allowed, moreover, that things might be loosed
there which were here first loosed in the Church. But now, when we see that
the day of another trouble is again beginning to draw near, and are
admonished by frequent and repeated intimations that we should be prepared
and armed for the struggle which the enemy announces to us, that we should
also prepare the people committed to us by divine condescension, by our
exhortations, and gather together from all parts all the soldiers of Christ
who desire arms, and are anxious for the battle within the Lord's camp:
trader the compulsion of this necessity, we have decided that peace is to
be given to those who have not withdrawn from the Church of the Lord, but
have not ceased from the first day of their lapse to repent, and to lament,
and to beseech the Lord; and we have decided that they ought to be armed
and equipped for the battle which is at hand.

   2. For we must comply with fitting intimations and admonitions, that
the sheep may not be deserted in danger by the shepherds, but that the
whole flock may be gathered together into one place, and the Lord's army
may be arrived for the contest of the heavenly warfare. For the repentance
of the mourners was reasonably prolonged for a more protracted time, help
only being afforded to the sick in their departure, so long as peace and
tranquillity prevailed, which permitted the long postponement of the tears
of the mourners, and late assistance in sickness to the dying. But now
indeed peace is necessary, not for the sick, but for the strong; nor is
communion to he granted by us to the dying, but to the living, that we may
not leave those whom we stir up and exhort to the battle unarmed and naked,
but may fortify them with the protection of Christ's body and blood. And,
as the Eucharist is appointed for this very purpose that it may be a
safeguard to the receivers, it is needful that we may arm those whom we
wish to be safe against the adversary with the protection of the Lord's
abundance. For how do we teach or provoke them to shed their blood in
confession of His name. if we deny to those who are about to enter on the
warfare the blood of Christ? Or how do we make them fit for the cup of
martyrdom, if we do not first admit them to drink, in the Church, the cup
of the Lord(1) by the right of communion?

   3. We should make a difference, dearest brother, between those who
either have apostatized, and, having returned to the world which they have
renounced, are living heathenish lives, or, having become deserters to the
heretics, are daily taking up parricidal arms against the Church; and those
who do not depart from the Church's threshold, and, constantly and
sorrowfully imploring divine and paternal consolation, profess that they
are now prepared for the battle, and ready to stand and fight bravely for
the name of their Lord and for their own salvation. In these times we grant
peace, not to those who sleep, but to those who watch. We grant peace, not
amid indulgences, but amid arms. We grant peace, not for rest, but for the
field of battle. If, according to what we hear, and desire, and believe of
them, they shall stand bravely, and shall overthrow the adversary with us
in the encounter, we shall not repent of having granted peace to men so
brave. Yea, it is the great honour and glory of our episcopate to  have
granted peace to martyrs, so that we, as priests, who daily celebrate the
sacrifices of God, may prepare offerings and victims for God. But if--which
may the Lord avert from our brethren--any one of the lapsed should deceive,
seeking peace by guile, and at the time of the impending struggle receiving
peace without any purpose of doing battle, he betrays and deceives himself,
hiding one thing in his heart and pronouncing another with his voice. We,
so far as it is allowed to us to see and to judge, look upon the face of
each one; we are not able to scrutinize the heart and to inspect the mind.
Concerning these the Discerner and Searcher of hidden things judges, and He
will quickly come and judge of the secrets and hidden things of the heart.
But the evil ought not to stand in the way of the good, but rather the evil
ought to be assisted by the good. Neither is peace, therefore, to be denied
to those who are about to endure martyrdom, because there are some who will
refuse it, since for this purpose peace should be granted to all who are
about to enter upon the warfare, that through our ignorance he may not be
the first one to be passed over, who in the struggle is to be crowned.

   4. Nor let any one say, "that he who accepts martyrdom is baptized in
his own blood, and peace is not necessary to him from the bishop, since he
is about to have the peace of his own glory, and about to receive a greater
reward from the condescension of the Lord." First of all, he cannot be
fitted for martyrdom who is not armed for the contest by the Church; and
his spirit is deficient which the Eucharist received does not raise and
stimulate. For the Lord says in His Gospel: "But when they deliver you up,
take no thought what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour
what ye  shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your
Father which speaketh in you."(2)  Now, since He says that the Spirit of
the Father speaks in those who are delivered up and set in the confession
of His name, how can he be found prepared or fit for that confession who
has not first, in the reception of peace, received the Spirit of the
Father, who, giving strength to His servants, Himself speaks and confesses
in us? Then, besides--if, having forsaken everything that he has, a man
shall flee, and dwelling in hiding-places and in solitude, shall fall by
chance among thieves, or shall die in fever and in weakness, will it not be
charged upon us that so good a soldier, who has forsaken all that he hath,
and contemning his house, and his parents, and his children, has preferred
to follow his Lord, dies without peace and without communion? Will not
either inactive negligence or cruel hardness be ascribed to us in the day
of judgment, that, pastors though we are, we have neither been willing to
take care of the sheep trusted and committed to us in peace, nor to arm
them in battle? Would not the charge be brought against us by the Lord,
which by His prophet He utters and says? "Behold, ye consume the milk, and
ye clothe you with the wool, and ye kill them that are fed; but ye feed not
my flock. The weak have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that
which was sick, neither have ye comforted that which was broken, neither
have ye brought again that which strayed, neither have ye sought that which
was lost, and that which was strong ye wore out with labour. And my sheep
were scattered, because there were no shepherds: and they became meat to
all the beasts of the field; and there was none who sought after them, nor
brought them back. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I am against the
shepherds; and I will require my sheep of their hand, and cause them to
cease from feeding my sheep; neither shall they feed them any more: and I
will deliver my sheep from their mouth, and I will feed them with
judgment."(1)

   5. Lest, then, the sheep committed to us by the Lord be demanded back
from our mouth, wherewith we deny peace, wherewith we oppose to them rather
the severity of human cruelty than the benignity of divine and paternal
love; we have determined(2) by the suggestion of the Holy Spirit and the
admonition of the Lord, conveyed by many and manifest visions, because the
enemy is foretold and shown to be at hand, to gather within the camp the
soldiers of Christ, to examine the cases of each one, and to grant peace to
the lapsed, yea, rather to furnish arms to those who are about to fight.
And this, we trust, will please you in contemplation of the paternal mercy.
But if there be any (one) of our colleagues who, now that the contest is
urgent, thinks that peace should not be granted to our brethren and
sisters, he shall give an account to the Lord in the day of judgment,
either of his grievous rigour or of his inhuman hardness. We, as befitted
our faith and charity and solicitude, have laid before you what was in our
own mind, namely, that the day of contest has approached, that a violent
enemy will soon rise up against us, that a struggle  is coming on, not such
as it has been, but much more serious and fierce. This is frequently shown
to us from above; concerning this we are often admonished by the providence
and mercy of the Lord, of whose help and love we who trust in Him may be
secure, because He who in peace foretells to His soldiers that the battle
will come, will give to them when they are warring victory in the
encounter. We bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.

EPISTLE LIV.(3)

TO CORNELIUS, CONCERNING FORTUNATUS AND FELICISSIMUS, OR AGAINST THE
HERETICS.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN CHIEFLY WARNS CORNELIUS IN THIS LETTER NOT TO HEAR THE
CALUMNIES OF FELICISSIMUS AND FORTUNATUS AGAINST HIM, AND NOT TO BE
FRIGHTENED BY THEIR THREATS, BUT TO BE OF A BRAVE SPIRIT, AS BECOMES GOD'S
PRIESTS IN OPPOSITION TO HERETICS; NAMELY, THOSE WHO, AFTER THE CUSTOM
PREVAILING AMONG HERETICS, BEGAN THEIR HERESY AND SCHISMS WITH THE CONTEMPT
OF ONE BISHOP IN THE CHURCH.(4)

   1. I have read your letter, dearest brother, which you sent by Saturus
our brother the acolyte, abundantly full of fraternal love and
ecclesiastical discipline and priestly reproof; in which you signified that
Felicissimus,(5) no new enemy of Christ, but long ago excommunicated for
his very many and grave crimes, and condemned not only by my judgment, but
also by that of very many of my fellow-bishops, has been rejected by you
there, and that when he came attended by a band and faction of desperadoes,
he was driven from the Church with the full rigour with which it behoves a
bishop to act. From which Church long ago he was driven, with others like
himself, by the majesty of God and the severity of Christ our Lord and
Judge; that the author of schism and disagreement, the fraudulent user of
money entrusted to him, the violator of virgins, the destroyer and
corrupter of many marriages, should not, by the dishonour of his presence
and his immodest and incestuous contact, violate further the spouse of
Christ, hitherto uncorrupt, holy, modest.

   2. But yet, when I read your other letter,  brother, which you
subjoined to your first one, I was considerably surprised at observing that
you were in some degree disturbed by the threats and terrors of those who
had come, when, according to what you wrote, they had attacked and
threatened you with the greatest desperation, that if you would not receive
the letters which they had brought, they would read them publicly, and
would utter many base and disgraceful things, and such as were worthy of
their mouth. But if the matter is thus, dearest brother, that the audacity
of the most wicked men is to be dreaded, and that what evil men cannot do
rightly and equitably, they may accomplish by daring and desperation, there
is an end of the vigour of the episcopacy, and of the sublime and divine
power of governing the Church; nor can we continue any longer, or in fact
now be Christians, if it is come to this, that we are to be afraid of the
threats or the snares of outcasts. For both Gentiles and Jews threaten, and
heretics and all those, of whose hearts and minds the devil has taken
possession, daily attest their venomous madness with furious voice. We are
not, therefore, to yield because they threaten; nor is the adversary and
enemy on that account greater than Christ, because he claims for himself
and assumes so much in the world. There ought to abide with us, dearest
brother, an immoveable strength of faith; and against all the irruptions
and onsets of the waves that roar against us, a steady and unshaken courage
should plant itself as with the fortitude and mass of a resisting rock. Nor
does it matter whence comes the terror or the danger to a bishop, who lives
subject to terrors and dangers, and is nevertheless made glorious by those
very terrors and dangers. For we ought not to consider and regard the mere
threats of the Gentiles or of the Jews, when we see that the Lord Himself
was deserted by His brethren, and was betrayed by him whom He Himself had
chosen among His apostles; that also in the beginning of the world it was
none other than a brother who slew righteous Abel, and an angry brother
pursued the fleeing Jacob, and the youthful Joseph was sold by the act of
his brethren. In the Gospel also we read that it was foretold that our foes
should rather be of our own household, and that they who have first been
associated in the sacrament of unity(1) shall be they who shall betray one
another. It makes no difference who delivers up or who rages, since God
permits those to be delivered up whom He appoints to be crowned. For it is
no ignominy to us to suffer from our brethren what Christ suffered, nor is
it glory to them to do what Judas did. But what insolence it is in them,
what swelling and inflated and vain boasting on the part of these
threateners, there to threaten me in my absence, when here they have me
present in their power! I do not fear their reproaches with which they
daily wound themselves and their own life; I do not tremble at their clubs
and stones and swords, which they brandish with parricidal words: as far as
lies in their power such men are homicides before God. Yet they are not
able to slay unless the Lord have allowed them to slay; and although I must
die but once, yet they daily slay me by their hatred, their words, and
their villanies.

   3. But, dearest brother, ecclesiastical discipline is not on that
account to be forsaken, nor priestly censure to be relaxed, because we are
disturbed with reproaches or are shaken with terrors; since Holy Scripture
meets and warns us, saying, "But he who presumes and is haughty, the man
who boasts of himself, who hath enlarged his soul as hell, shall accomplish
nothing."(2) And again: "And fear not the words of a sinful man, for his
glory shall be dung and worms. To-day he is lifted up, and to-morrow he
shall not be found, because he is turned into his earth, and his thought
shall perish."(3) And again: "I have seen the wicked exalted, and raised
above the cedars of Libanus: I went by, and, lo, he was not; yea, I sought
him, and his place was not found."(4) Exaltation, and puffing up, and
arrogant and haughty boastfulness, spring not from the teaching of Christ
who teaches humility, but from the spirit of Antichrist, whom the Lord
rebukes by His prophet, saying, "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will
ascend into heaven, I will place my throne above the stars of God: I will
sit on a lofty mountain, above the lofty mountains to the north: I will
ascend above the clouds; I will be like the Most High."(5) And he added,
saying, "Yet thou shalt descend into hell, to the foundations of the earth;
and they that see thee shall wonder at thee."(6) Whence also divine
Scripture threatens a like punishment to such in another place, and says,
"For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is injurious
and proud, and upon every one that is lifted up, and lofty."(7) By his
mouth, therefore, and by his words, is every one at once betrayed; and
whether he has Christ in his heart, or Antichrist, is discerned in his
speaking, according to what the Lord says in His Gospel, "O generation of
vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure
bringeth forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure
bringeth forth evil things."(1) Whence also that rich sinner who implores
help from Lazarus, then laid in Abraham's bosom, and established in a place
of comfort, while he, writhing in torments, is consumed by the heats of
burning flame, suffers most punishment of all parts of his body in his
mouth and his tongue, because doubtless in his mouth and his tongue he had
most sinned.(2)

   4. For since it is written, "Neither shall revilers inherit the kingdom
of God,"(3) and again the Lord says in His Gospel, "Whosoever shall say to
his brother, Thou fool; and whosoever shall say, Raca, shall be in danger
of the Gehenna of fire,"(4) how can they evade the rebuke of the Lord the
avenger, who heap up such expressions, not only on their brethren, but also
on the priests, to whom is granted such honour of the condescension of God,
that whosoever should not obey his priest, and him that judgeth here for
the time, was immediately to be slain? In Deuteronomy the Lord God speaks,
saying, "And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto
the priest or to the judge, whosoever he shall be in those days, that man
shall die; and all the people, when they hear, shall fear, and shall do no
more wickedly."(5) Moreover, to Samuel when he was despised by the Jews,
God says; "They have not despised thee, but they have despised me."(6) And
the Lord also in the Gospel says, "He that heareth you, heareth me, and Him
that sent me; and he that rejecteth you, rejecteth me; and he that
rejecteth me, rejecteth Him that sent me."(7) And when he had cleansed the
leprous man, he said, "Go, show thyself to the priest."(8) And when
afterwards, in the time of His passion, He had received a buffet from a
servant of the priest, and the servant said to Him, "Answerest thou the
high priest so?"(9) the Lord said nothing reproachfully against the high
priest, nor detracted anything from the priest's honour; but rather
asserting His own innocence, and showing it, He says, "If I have spoken
evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?"(10) Also
subsequently, in the Acts of the Apostles, the blessed Apostle Paul, when
it was said to him, "Revilest thou God's priest?"(11)--although they had
begun to be sacrilegious, and impious, and bloody, the Lord having already
been crucified, and had no longer retained anything of the priestly honour
and authority--yet Paul, considering the name itself, however empty, and
the shadow, as it were, of the priest, said, "I wist not, brethren, that he
was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the
ruler of thy, people."(12)

   5. When, then, such and so great examples, and many others, are
precedents whereby the priestly authority and power by the divine
condescension is established, what kind of people, think you, are they who,
being enemies of the priests, and rebels against the Catholic Church, are
frightened neither by the threatening of a forewarning Lord, nor by the
vengeance of coming judgment? For neither have heresies arisen, nor have
schisms originated, from any other source than from this, that God's priest
is not obeyed; nor do they consider that there is one person for the time
priest in the Church, and for the time judge in the stead of Christ;(13)
whom, if, according to divine teaching, the whole fraternity should obey,
no one would stir up anything against the college of priests; no one, after
the divine judgment, after the suffrage of the people, after the consent of
the co-bishops, would make himself a judge, not now of the bishop, but of
God. No one would rend the Church by a division of the unity of Christ.(14)
No one, pleasing himself, and swelling with arrogance, would found a new
heresy, separate and without, unless any one be of such sacrilegious daring
and abandoned mind, as to think that a priest is made without God's
judgment, when the Lord says in His Gospel, "Are not two sparrows sold for
a farthing? and one of them does not fall to the ground without the will of
your Father."(15) When He says that not even the least things are done
without God's will, does any one think that the highest and greatest things
are done in God's Church either without God's knowledge or permission, and
that priests--that is, His stewards--are not ordained by His decree? This
is not to have faith, whereby we live; this is not to give honour to God,
by whose direction and decision we know and believe that all things are
ruled and governed. Undoubtedly there are bishops made, not by the will of
God, but they are such as are made outside of the Church--such as are made
contrary to the ordinance and tradition of the Gospel, as the Lord Himself
in the twelve prophets asserts, saying, "They have set up a king for
themselves, and not by me."(16) And again: "Their sacrifices are as the
bread of mourning; all that eat thereof shall be polluted."(1) And the Holy
Spirit also cries by Isaiah, and says, "Woe unto you, children that are
deserters. Thus saith the Lord, Ye have taken counsel, but not of me; and
ye have made a covenant, but not of my Spirit, that ye may add sin to
sin."(2)

   6. But--I speak to you as being provoked; I speak as grieving; I speak
as constrained--when a bishop is appointed into the place of one deceased,
when he is chosen in time of peace by the suffrage of an entire people,
when he is protected by the help of God in persecution, faithfully linked
with all his colleagues, approved to his people by now four years'
experience in his episcopate; observant of discipline in time of peace; in
time of disturbance, proscribed with the name of his episcopate applied and
attached to him; so often asked for in the circus "for the lions;" in the
amphitheatre, honoured with the testimony of the divine condescension; even
in these very days on which I have written this letter to you, on account
of the sacrifices which, by proclaimed edict, the people were commanded to
celebrate, demanded anew in the circus "for the lions" by the clamour of
the populace;--when such a one, dearest brother, is seen to be assailed by
some desperate and reckless men, and by those who have their place outside
the Church, it is manifest who assails him: not assuredly Christ, who
either appoints or protects his priests; but he who, as the adversary of
Christ and the foe to His Church, for this purpose persecutes with his
malice the ruler of the Church, that when the pilot is removed, he may rage
more atrociously and more violently with a view to the Church's dispersion.

   7. Nor ought it, my dearest brother, to disturb any one who is faithful
and mindful of the Gospel, and retains the commands of the apostle who
forewarns us; if in the last days certain persons, proud, contumacious, and
enemies of God's priests, either depart from the Church or act against the
Church, since both the Lord and His apostles have previously foretold that
there  should be such. Nor let any one wonder that  the servant placed over
them should be forsaken by some, when His own disciples forsook the Lord
Himself, who performed such great and wonderful works, and illustrated the
attributes of God the Father by the testimony of His doings. And yet He did
not rebuke them when they went away, nor even severely threaten them; but
rather, turning to His apostles, He said, "Will ye also go away?"(3)
manifestly observing the law whereby a man left to his own liberty, and
established in his own choice, himself desires for himself either death or
salvation. Nevertheless, Peter,(4) upon whom by the same Lord the Church
had been built, speaking one for all, and answering with the voice of the
Church, says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life; and we believe, and are sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God:"(5) signifying, doubtless, and showing that those who departed
from Christ perished by their own fault, yet that the Church which believes
on Christ, and holds that which it has once learned, never departs from Him
at all, and that those are the Church who remain in the house of God; but
that, on the other hand, they are not the plantation planted by God the
Father, whom we see not to be established with the stability of wheat, but
blown about like chaff by the breath of the enemy scattering them, of whom
John also in his epistle says, "They went out from us, but they were not of
us; for if they had been of us, no doubt they would have continued with
us."(6) Paul also warns us, when evil men perish out of the Church, not to
be disturbed, nor to let our faith be lessened by the departure of the
faithless. "For what," he says, "if some of them have departed from the
faith? Hath their unbelief made the faith of God of none effect? God
forbid! For God is true, but every man a liar."(7)

   8. For our own part, it befits our conscience, dearest brother, to
strive that none should perish going out of the Church by our fault; but if
any one, of his own accord and by his own sin, should perish, and should be
unwilling to repent and to return to the Church, that we who are anxious
for their well-being should be blameless in the day of judgment, and that
they alone  should remain in punishment who refused to be healed by the
wholesomeness of our advice. Nor ought the reproaches of the lost to move
us in any degree to depart from the right path and from the sure rule,
since also the apostle instructs us, saying, "If I should please men, I
should not be the servant of Christ."(8) There is a great difference
whether one desires to deserve well of men or of God. If we seek to please
men, the Lord is offended. But if we strive and labour that we may please
God, we ought to contemn human reproaches and abuse.

   9. But that I did not immediately write to you, dearest brother, about
Fortunatus, that pseudo-bishop, constituted by a few, and those, inveterate
heretics, the matter was not such as ought at once and hastily to be
brought under your notice, as if it were great or to be feared; especially
since you already know well enough the name of Fortunatus, who is one of
the five presbyters who some time back deserted from the Church, and were
lately excommunicated by the judgment of our fellow-bishops,(1) men both
numerous and entitled to the greatest respect, who on this matter wrote to
you last year. Also you would recognise Felicissimus, the standard-bearer
of sedition, who himself also is comprised in those same letters long ago
written to you by our co-bishops,(1) and who not only was excommunicated by
them here, but moreover was lately driven from the Church by you there.
Since I was confident that these things were in your knowledge, and knew
for certain that they abode in your memory and discipline, I did not think
it necessary that the follies of heretics should be told you quickly and
urgently. For indeed it ought not to pertain to the majesty or the dignity
of the Catholic Church, to concern itself with what the audacity of
heretics and schismatics may attempt among themselves. For Novatian's party
is also said to have now made Maximus the presbyter--who was lately sent to
us as an ambassador for Novatian, and rejected from communion with us--
their false bishop in that place; and yet I had not written to you about
this, since all these things are slighted by us;  and I had sent to you
lately the names of the bishops appointed there, who with wholesome and
sound discipline govern the brethren in the Catholic Church.(2) And this
certainly, therefore,  it was decided by the advice of all of us to write
to you, that there might be found a short method of destroying error and of
finding out truth, that you and our colleagues might know to whom to write,
and reciprocally, from whom it behoved you to receive letters; but if any
one, except those whom we have comprised in our letter, should dare to
write to you, you would know either that he was polluted by sacrifice, or
by receiving a certificate, or that he was one of the heretics, and
therefore perverted and profane. Nevertheless, having gained an
opportunity, by means of a very great friend and a clerk, I have written to
you by Felicianus the acolyte, whom you had sent with Perseus our
colleague, among other matters which were to be brought under your notice
from their party, about that Fortunatus also. But while our brother
Felicianus is  either retarded there by the wind or is detained by
receiving other letters from us, he has been forestalled by Felicissimus
hastening to you. For thus wickedness always hastens, as if by its speed it
could prevail against innocence.

   10. But I intimated to you, my brother, by Felicianus, that there had
come to Carthage, Privatus, an old heretic in the colony of Lambesa, many
years ago condemned for many and grave crimes by the judgment of ninety
bishops, and severely remarked upon in the letters of Fabian and Donatus,
also our predecessors, as is not hidden from your knowledge;(3) who, when
he said that he wished to plead his cause before us in the council which we
held on the Ides of May then past, and was not permitted, made for himself
that Fortunatus a pretended bishop, worthy of his college. And there had
also come with him a certain Felix, whom he himself had formerly appointed
a pseudo-bishop outside the Church, in heresy. But Jovinus also, and
Maximus, were present as companions with the proved heretic,(4) condemned
for wicked sacrifices and crimes proved against them by the judgment of
nine bishops, our colleagues, and again excommunicated also by many of us
last year in a council. And with these four was also joined Repostus of
Suturnica, who not only fell himself in the persecution, but cast down by
sacrilegious persuasion the greatest part of his people. These five, with a
few who either had sacrificed, or had evil consciences, concurred in
desiring Fortunatus as a false bishop for themselves, that so, their crimes
agreeing, the ruler should be such as those who are ruled.

   11. Hence also, dearest brother, you may now know the other falsehoods
which desperate and abandoned men have there spread about, that although,
of the sacrificers, or of the heretics, there were not more than five false
bishops who came to Carthage, and appointed Fortunatus as the associate of
their madness; yet they, as children of the devil, and full of lies, dared,
as you write, to boast that there were present twenty-five bishops; which
falsehood they boasted here also before among our brethren, saying that
twenty-five bishops would come from Numidia to make a bishop for them.
After they were detected and confounded in this their lie (only five who
had made shipwreck coming together, and these being excommunicated by us),
they sailed to Rome with the reward of their lies, as if the truth could
not sail after them, and convict their lying tongues by proof of the
certainty. And this, my brother, is real madness, not to think nor to know
that lies do not long deceive, that the night only lasts so long as until
the day brightens; but that when the day is clear and the sun has arisen,
the darkness and gloom give place to light, and the robberies which were
going on through the night cease. In fine, if you were to seek the names
from them, they would have none which they could even falsely give. For
such among them is the penury even of wicked men, that neither of
sacrificers nor of heretics can there be collected twenty-five for them;
and yet, for the sake of deceiving the ears of the simple and the absent,
the number is exaggerated by a lie, as if, even if this number were true,
either the Church would be overcome by heretics, or righteousness by the
unrighteous.

   12. Nor does it behove me, dearest brother, to do like things to them,
and to go through in my discourse those things which they have committed,
and still commit, since we have to consider what it becomes God's priests
to utter and to write. Nor ought grief to speak among us so much as shame,
and I ought not to seem provoked rather to heap together reproaches than
crimes and sins. Therefore I am silent upon the deceits practised in the
Church. I pass over the conspiracies and adulteries, and the various kinds
of crimes. That circumstance alone, however, of their wickedness, in which
the cause is not mine, nor man's, but God's, I do not think must be
withheld; that from the very first day of the persecution, while the recent
crimes of the guilty were still hot, and not only the devil's altars, but
the very hands and the mouths of the lapsed, were still smoking with the
abominable sacrifices, they did not cease to communicate with the lapsed,
and to interfere with their repentance. God cries, "He that sacrificeth
unto any gods, save unto the Lord only, shall be rooted out."(1) And in the
Gospel the Lord says, "Whosoever shall deny me, him will I deny."(2) And in
another place the divine indignation and anger are not silent, saying, "To
them hast thou poured out a drink-offering, and to them hast thou offered a
meat-offering. Shall I not be angry with these things? saith the Lord.''(3)
And they interfere that God may not be entreated, who Himself declares that
He is angry; they interpose that Christ may not be besought with prayers
and  satisfactions, who professes that him who denies Him He will deny.

   13. In the very time of persecution we wrote letters on this matter,
but we were not attended to. A full council being held, we decreed, not
only with our consent, but also with our threatening, that the brethren
should repent,(4) and that none should rashly grant peace to those who did
not repent. And those sacrilegious persons rush with impious madness
against God's priests, departing from the Church; and raising their
parricidal arms against the Church, in order that the malice of the devil
may consummate their work,(5) take pains that the divine clemency may not
heal the wounded in His Church. They  corrupt the repentance of the
wretched men by  the deceitfulness of their lies, that it may not satisfy
an offended God--that he who has either blushed or feared to be a Christian
before, may not afterwards seek Christ his Lord, nor he return to the
Church who had departed from the Church. Efforts are used that the sins may
not be atoned for with just satisfactions and lamentations, that the wounds
may not be washed away with tears. True peace is done away by the falsehood
of a false peace; the healthful bosom of a mother is closed by the
interference of the stepmother, that weeping and groaning may not be heard
from the breast and from the lips of the lapsed. And beyond this, the
lapsed are compelled with their tongues and lips, in the Capitol(6) wherein
before they had sinned, to reproach the priests--to assail with contumelies
and with abusive words the confessors and virgins, and those righteous men
who are most eminent for the praise of the faith, and most glorious in the
Church. By which things, indeed, it is not so much the modesty and the
humility and the shame of our people that are smitten, as their own hope
and life that are lacerated. For neither is it he who hears, but he who
utters the reproach, that is wretched; nor is it he who is smitten by his
brother, but he who smites a brother, that is a sinner under the law; and
when the guilty do a wrong to the innocent, they suffer the injury who
think that they are doing it. Finally, their mind is smitten by these
things, and their spirit is dull, and their sense of right is estranged: it
is God's wrath that they do not  perceive their sins, lest repentance
should follow as it is written, "And God gave them the spirit of
torpor,"(7) that is, that they may not return and be healed, and be made
whole after their sins by just prayers and satisfactions. Paul the apostle
in his epistle lays it down, and says, "They received not the love of the
truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be
judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."(8)
The highest degree of happiness is, not to sin; the second, to acknowledge
our sins. In the former, innocence flows pure and unstained to preserve us;
in the latter, there comes a medicine to heal us. Both of these they have
lost by offending God, both because the grace is lost which is received
from the sanctification of  baptism, and repentance comes not to their
help, whereby the sin is healed. Think you, brother, that their
wickednesses against God are trifling, their sins small and moderate--since
by their means the majesty of an angry God is not besought, since the anger
and the fire and the day of the Lord is not feared--since, when Antichrist
is at hand the faith of the militant people is disarmed by the taking away
of the power of Christ and His fear? Let the laity see to it how they may
amend this.(1) A heavier labour is incumbent on the priests in asserting
and maintaining the majesty of God, that we seem not to neglect anything in
this respect, when God admonishes us, and says, "And now, O ye priests,
this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it
to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord, I will even send a
curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing."(2) Is honour, then, given
to God when the majesty and decree of God are so condemned, that when He
declares that He is indignant and angry with those who sacrifice, and when
He threatens eternal penalties and perpetual punishments, it is proposed by
the sacrilegious, and said, Let not the wrath of God be considered, let not
the judgment of the Lord be feared, let not any knock at the Church of
Christ; but repentance being done away with, and no confession of sin being
made, the bishops being despised and trodden under foot, let peace be
proclaimed by the presbyters in deceitful words; and lest the lapsed should
rise up, or those placed without should return to the Church, let communion
be offered to those who are not in communion?

   14. To these also it was not sufficient that they had withdrawn from
the Gospel, that they had taken away from the lapsed the hope of
satisfaction and repentance, that they had taken away those involved in
frauds or stained with adulteries, or polluted with the deadly contagion of
sacrifices, lest they should entreat God, or make confession of their
crimes in the Church, from all feeling and fruit of repentance; that they
had set up(3) outside for themselves--outside the Church, and opposed to
the Church, a conventicle of their abandoned faction, when there had flowed
together a band of creatures with evil consciences, and unwilling to
entreat and to satisfy God. After such things as these, moreover, they
still dare--a false bishop having been appointed for them by, heretics--to
set sail and to bear letters from schismatic and profane persons to the
throne of Peter, and to the chief church whence priestly unity takes its
source;(4) and not to consider that these were the Romans whose faith was
praised in the preaching of the apostle, to whom faithlessness could have
no access.(5) But what was the reason of their coming and announcing the
making of the pseudo-bishop in opposition to the bishops? For either they
are pleased with what they have done, and persist in their wickedness; or,
if they are displeased and retreat, they know whither they may return. For,
as it has been decreed by all of us(6)--and is equally fair and just--that
the case of every one should be heard there where the crime has been
committed; and a portion of the flock has been assigned to each individual
pastor, which he is to rule and govern, having to give account of his doing
to the Lord; it certainly behoves those over whom we are placed not to run
about nor  to break up the harmonious agreement of the bishops with their
crafty and deceitful rashness, but there to plead their cause, where they
may be able to have both accusers and witnesses of their crime; unless
perchance the authority of the bishops constituted in Africa seems to a few
desperate and abandoned men to be too little,(7) who have already judged
concerning them, and have lately condemned, by the gravity of their
judgment, their conscience bound in many bonds of sins. Already their case
has been examined, already sentence concerning them has been pronounced;
nor is it fitting for the dignity of priests to be blamed for the levity of
a changeable and inconstant mind, when the Lord teaches and says, "Let your
communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay."(8)

   15. If the number of those who judged concerning them last year be
reckoned with the presbyters and deacons, then there were more present to
the judgment and hearing than are those very same persons who now seem to
be associated with Fortunatus. For you ought to know, dearest brother, that
after he was made a pseudo-bishop by the heretics, he was at once deserted
by almost all. For those to whom in past time delusions were offered, and
deceitful words were given, to the effect that they were to return to the
Church together; after they saw that a false bishop was made there, learned
that they had been fooled and deceived, and are daily returning and
knocking at the door of the Church; while we, meanwhile, by whom account is
to be given to the Lord, are anxiously weighing and carefully examining who
ought to be received and admitted into the Church. For some are either
hindered by their crimes to such a degree, or they are so obstinately and
firmly opposed by their brethren, that they cannot be received at all
except with offence and risk to a great many, For neither must some
putridities be so collected and brought together, that the parts which are
sound and whole should be injured; nor is that pastor serviceable or wise
who so mingles the diseased and affected sheep with his flock as to
contaminate the whole flock with the infection of the clinging evil. (Do
not pay attention to their number.(1) For one who fears God is better than
a thousand impious sons, as the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying, "O son,
do not delight in ungodly sons, though they multiply to thee, except the
fear of the Lord be with them."(2)) Oh, if you could, dearest brother, be
with us here when those evil and perverse men return from schism, you would
see what labour is mine to persuade patience to our brethren, that they
should calm their grief of mind, and consent to receive and heal the
wicked. For as they rejoice and are glad when those who are endurable and
less guilty return, so, on the other hand, they murmur and are dissatisfied
as often as the incorrigible and violent, and those who are contaminated
either by adulteries or by sacrifices, and who, in addition to this, are
proud besides, so return to the Church, as to corrupt the good dispositions
within it. Scarcely do I persuade the people; nay, I extort it from them,
that they should suffer such to be admitted. And the grief of the
fraternity is made the more just, from the fact that one and another who,
notwithstanding the opposition and contradiction of the people, have been
received by my facility, have proved worse than they had been before, and
have not been able to keep the faith of their repentance, because they had
not come with true repentance.

   16. But what am I to say of those who have now sailed to you with
Felicissimus, guilty of every crime, as ambassadors sent by Fortunatus the
pseudo-bishop, bringing to you letters as false as he himself is false,
whose letters they bring, as his conscience is full of sins, as his life is
execrable, as it is disgraceful; so that, even if they were in the Church,
such people ought to be expelled from the Church. In addition, since they
have known their own conscience, they do not dare to come to us or to
approach to the I threshold of the Church, but wander about, without her,
through the province, for the sake of circumventing and defrauding the
brethren; and now, being sufficiently known to all, and everywhere excluded
for their crimes, they sail thither also to you. For they cannot have the
face to approach to us, or to stand before us, since the crimes which are
charged upon them by the brethren are most grievous and grave. If they wish
to undergo our judgment, let them come. Finally, if they can find any
excuse or defence. let us see what thought they have of making
satisfaction, what fruit of repentance they bring forward. The Church is
neither closed here to any one, nor is the bishop denied to any. Our
patience, and facility, and humanity are ready for those who come. I
entreat all to return into the Church. I beg all our fellow-soldiers to be
included within the camp of Christ, and the dwelling-place of God the
Father. I remit everything. I shut my eyes to many things, with the desire
and the wish to gather together the brotherhood. Even those things which
are committed against God I do not investigate with the full judgment of
religion. I almost sin myself, in remitting sins(3) more than I ought. I
embrace with prompt and full love those who return with repentance,
confessing their sin with lowly and unaffected atonement.(4)

   17. But if there are some who think that they can return to the Church
not with prayers but with threats, or suppose that they can make a way for
themselves, not with lamentation and atonements, but with terrors, let them
take it for certain that against such the Church of the Lord stands closed;
nor does the camp of Christ, unconquered and firm with the Lord's
protection, yield to threats. The priest of God holding fast the Gospel and
keeping Christ's precepts may be slain; he cannot be conquered. Zacharias,
God's priest, suggests and furnishes to us examples of courage and faith,
who, when he could not be terrified with threats and stoning, was slain in
the temple of God, at the same time crying out and saying, what we also cry
out and say against the heretics, "Thus saith the Lord, Ye have forsaken
the ways of the Lord, and the Lord will forsake you."(5) For because a few
rash and wicked men forsake the heavenly and wholesome ways of the Lord,
and not doing holy things are deserted by the Holy Spirit, we also ought
not therefore to be unmindful of the divine tradition, so as to think that
the crimes of madmen are greater than the judgments of priests; or conceive
that human endeavours can do more to attack, than divine protection avails
to defend.

   18. Is the dignity of the Catholic Church, dearest brother, to be laid
aside, is the faithful and uncorrupted majesty of the people placed within
it,(1) and the priestly authority and power also, all to be laid aside for
this, that those who are set without the Church may say that they wish to
judge concerning a prelate in the Church? heretics concerning a Christian?
wounded men about a whole man? maimed concerning a sound man? lapsed
concerning one who stands fast? guilty concerning their judge? sacrilegious
men concerning a priest? What is left but that the Church should yield to
the Capitol, and that, while the priests depart and remove the Lord's
altar, the images and idols should pass over with their altars into the
sacred and venerable assembly of our clergy, and a larger and fuller
material for declaiming against us and abusing us be afforded to Novatian;
if they who have sacrificed and have publicly denied Christ should begin
not only to be entreated and admitted without penance done, but, moreover,
in addition, to domineer by the power of their terror?

   19. If they desire peace, let them lay aside their arms. If they make
atonement, why do they threaten? or if they threaten, let them know that
they are not feared by God's priests. For even Antichrist, when he shall
begin to come, shall not enter into the Church because he threatens;
neither shall we yield to his arms and violence, because he declares that
he will destroy us if we resist. Heretics arm us when they think that we
are terrified by their threatenings; nor  do they cast us down on our face,
but rather they lift us up and inflame us, when they make peace itself
worse to the brethren than persecution. And we desire, indeed, that they
may not fill up with crime what they speak in madness, that they who sin
with perfidious and cruel words may not also sin in deeds. We pray and
beseech God, whom they do not cease to provoke and exasperate, that He will
soften their hearts, that they may lay aside their madness, and return to
soundness of mind; that their breasts, covered over with the darkness of
sins, may acknowledge the light of repentance, and that they may rather
seek that the prayers and supplications of the priest may be poured out on
their behalf, than themselves pour out the blood of the priest. But if they
continue in their madness, and cruelly persevere in these their parricidal
deceits and threats, no priest of God is so weak, so prostrate, and so
abject, so inefficient by the weakness of human infirmity, as not to be
aroused against the enemies and impugners of God by strength from above; as
not to find his humility and weakness animated by the vigour and strength
of the Lord who protects him. It matters nothing to us by whom, or when we
are slain, since we shall receive from the Lord the reward of our death and
of our blood. Their concision(2) is to be mourned and lamented, whom the
devil so blinds, that, without considering the eternal punishments of
Gehenna, they endeavour to imitate the coming of Antichrist, who is now
approaching.

   20. And although I know, dearest brother, from the mutual love which we
owe and manifest one towards another, that you always read my letters to
the very distinguished clergy who preside with you there,(3) and to your
very holy and large congregation,(4) yet now I both warn and ask you to do
by my request what at other times you do of your own accord and courtesy;
that so, by the reading of this my letter, if any contagion of envenomed
speech and of pestilent propagation has crept in there, it may be all
purged out of the ears and of the hearts of the brethren, and the sound and
sincere affection of the good may be cleansed anew from all the filth of
heretical disparagement.

   21. But for the rest, let our most beloved brethren firmly decline, and
avoid the words and conversations of those whose word creeps onwards like a
cancer; as the apostle says, "Evil communications corrupt good manners."(5)
And again: "A man that is an heretic, after one admonition, reject: knowing
that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of
himself."(6) And the Holy Spirit speaks by Solomon, saying, "A perverse man
carrieth perdition in his mouth; and in his lips he hideth a fire."(7)
Also again, he warneth us, and says, "Hedge in thy ears with thorns, and
hearken not to a wicked tongue."(8) And again: "A wicked doer giveth heed
to the tongue of the unjust; but a righteous man does not listen to lying
lips."(9) And although I know that our brotherhood there,(10) assuredly
fortified by your foresight, and besides sufficiently cautious by their own
vigilance, cannot be taken nor deceived by the poisons of heretics, and
that the teachings and precepts of God prevail with them only in proportion
as the fear of God is in them; yet, even although needlessly, either my
solicitude or my love persuaded me to write these things to you, that no
commerce should be entered into with such; that no banquets nor conferences
be entertained with the wicked; but that we should be as much separated
from them, as they are  deserters from the Churh; because it is written,
"lf he shall neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen
man and a publican."(1) And the blessed apostle not only warns, but also
commands us to withdraw from such. "We command you," he says, "in the name
of Jesus Christ our Lord, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother
that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of
us."(2) There can be no fellowship between faith and faithlessness. He who
is not with Christ, who is an adversary of Christ, who is hostile to His
unity and peace, cannot be associated with us. If they come with prayers
and atonements, let them be heard; if they heap together curses and threats
let them be rejected. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily
farewell.(3)


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 5, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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